KENTUCKY 
WARBLER 

JAMES  LANE 
ALLEN 


\          i 


lie  J. 


THE    KENTUCKY 
WARBLER 


>••       •  •  • * 


"THERE  HE  WAS — THE  KENTUCKY  WARBLER!" 


THE    KENTUCKY 
WARBLER 

BY 

JAMES  LANE  ALLEN 


When  the  population  of  this  immense  Western 
Republic  will  have  diffused  itself  over  every  acre  of 
ground  fit  for  the  comfortable  habttation  of  man, 
.  .  .  then  not  a  warbler  shall  flit  through  our 
thickets,  but  its  name,  its  notes,  its  habits  will  be 
familiar  to  all  —  repeated  in  their  sayings  and 
celebrated  in  their  village  songs. 

— ALEXANDER  WILSON 


WITH   A 
FRONTISPIECE    IN    COLOUR 


GARDEN  CITY    NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

I9l8 


!   t'"t  './COPYRIGHT,    1918,    BY 
•  •       -DOUBLtlJAY,    PAGE    &   COMPANY 
j-^lpl"^    lySSERVED,    INCLUDING   THAT   OF 
TRANSLATION    INTO    FOREIGN    LANGUAGES, 
INCLUDING   THE    SCANDINAVIAN 


TO 

THE  YOUNG  KENTUCKY 
FOREST-LOVER 


979397 


CHAPTER  I 
HOME 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 


CHAPTER  II 

SCHOOL 45 

CHAPTER  III 

FOREST      .       .       .       .       .100 

CHAPTER  IV 

BIRD 161 

CHAPTER  V 

"ROAD 175 


THE    KENTUCKY 
WARBLER 


THE    HOME 

EBSTER,  along  witti  thou 
sands  of   other  lusty  for 
ward-looking    Kentucky 
children,  went    to    the 
crowded  public  schools. 

There  every  morning  against  his  will 
but  with  the  connivance  of  his  parents 
he  was  made  a  prisoner,  as  it  seemed 
to  him,  and  for  long  hours  held  as  such 
while  many  things  disagreeable  or  un 
necessary,  some  by  one  teacher  and 
some  by  another,  were  forced  into  his 
head.  Soon  after  they  were  forced  in 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

most  of  the  things  disappeared  from 
the  head.  What  became  of  them  no 
body  knew:  Webster  didn't  know  and 
he  didn't  care.  During  the  forcing-in 
process  month  by  month  and  year  by 
year  he  now  and  then  picked  up  a 
pleasant  idea  for  himself,  some  wonder 
ful  idea  about  great  things  on  ahead  in 
life  or  about  the  tempting  world  just 
outside  school.  He  picked  up  such 
ideas  with  ease  and  eagerness  and  held 
on  to  them. 

He  lived  in  a  small  white-frame  cot 
tage  which  was  rather  new  but  already 
looked  rather  old.  It  stood  in  a  small 
green  yard,  which  was  naturally  very 
old  but  still  looked  young.  The  still- 
young  yard  and  the  already-ageing 
cottage  were  to  be  found — should  any 
body  have  tried  to  find  them — on  the 


TH  E     HOME 

rim  of  the  city.  If  the  architectural 
plan  of  the  city  had  been  mapped  out 
as  an  open-air  theatre,  the  cottage 
would  have  been  a  rear  seat  in  the  very 
last  row  at  the  very  lowest  price.  The 
block  was  made  up  of  such  cottages — 
rear  seats.  They  faced  the  city  but 
couldn't  see  the  city,  couldn't  see  any 
thing  worth  seeing,  and  might  as  well 
have  looked  in  some  other  direction  or 
not  looked  at  all. 

If  Webster  stepped  out  of  the  front 
door,  he  was  within  five  yards  of  the 
outmost  thoroughfare — native  dirt- 
road  for  milk  wagons,  butchers'  wag 
ons,  coal  carts,  and  fruit-and-berry 
wagons.  Webster's  father  kept  an 
especial  eye  on  the  coal  carts:  they 
weighed  heavily  on  his  salary.  Web 
ster's  mother  kept  her  eye  on  the  fruit- 

5 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

and-berry  wagons:  they  tantalised  her 
passion  for  preserves.  Everybody 
kept  uneasy  eyes  on  milk  and  butchers' 
and  vegetable  wagons,  which  brought 
expensive  satisfaction  to  appetites  for 
three  meals  a  day.  The  edges  of  the 
thoroughfare  were  paths  for  the  cot 
tagers,  all  of  whom  walked  and  were 
glad  and  grateful  even  to  be  able  to 
walk.  The  visitors  of  the  cottagers 
walked.  Everybody  walked  but  the 
drivers.  The  French  would  have  called 
the  street  The  Avenue  of  Soles. 

One  wet  winter  morning  as  Webster, 
walking  beside  his  father,  lifted  his 
feet  out  of  the  mud  and  felt  sorry  about 
their  shoes,  he  complained  because 
there  was  no  pavement. 

"My  son/'  replied  his  father,  whose 
remarks  on  any  subject  appeared  to 

6 


THE     HOME 

come  out  of  a  clear  sky,  so  unclouded 
were  they  by  uncertainty,  "my  son, 
your  father's  salary  is  not  a  paved- 
sidewalk  salary.  The  mud  on  your 
shoes  is  in  an  inverse  ratio  to  the  funds 
in  his  pockets.  I  believe  you  have 
learned  in  your  arithmetic  at  school  by 
this  time  what  ratio  is." 

One  dry  summer  morning  as  Web 
ster  walked  beside  his  father,  a  butch 
er's  wagon  whirled  past  and  covered 
them  quickly  with  dust.  He  consid 
ered  this  injury  to  their  best  clothes 
and  complained  because  there  was  no 
watering-cart. 

"My  son,"  replied  his  father  out  of 
his  daily  clear  sky,  "my  salary  is  not  a 
watering-cart  salary.  The  presence  of 
the  earth's  dust  in  your  eyes  exactly 
equals  the  lack  of  gold-dust  in  your 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

father's  earthly  account.  I  believe  by 
this  time  you  have  studied  equations." 

But  if  Webster  had  stepped  out  of  the 
back  door  of  the  cottage  and  passed 
under  the  clothesline  which  was  held 
up  at  its  middle  point  by  a  forked  pole, 
if  he  had  crossed  their  very  small  vege 
table  garden  and  then  had  crossed  a  wide 
deep  cow-lot  where  some  rich  man  of 
the  city  pastured  his  fat  milk  cows,  he 
would  have  been  on  the  edge  of  the 
country.  It  was  possible  for  one  stand 
ing  on  the  rear  porch  to  see  all  summer 
thick,  softly  waving  woods. 

Within  the  past  two  or  three  years, 
as  summer  had  come  again  and  the 
world  turned  green,  a  change  had  taken 
place  in  Webster,  a  growth.  More  and 
more  he  began  to  look  from  the  porch 
or  windows  at  those  distant  massed 

8 


THE     HOM  E 

trees.  Something  from  them  seemed 
to  cross  over  to  him,  an  influence  pow 
erful  and  compelling;  it  drew  him  out 
of  the  house  back  with  it  into  the  mys 
tery  of  the  forest  and  he  never  returned. 

In  truth,  almost  as  soon  as  he  could 
go  anywhere  he  had  started  toward  the 
forest  without  asking  permission.  They 
had  overtaken  him  then  and  dragged 
him  back.  When  he  was  old  enough 
to  understand,  they  had  explained: 
he  was  too  young,  he  would  get  lost, 
the  bull  would  hook  him. 

"But  why?"  Webster  had  asked, 
complaining  of  this  new  injustice  in 
the  world.  He  was  perpetually  being 
surprised  that  so  many  things  in  the 
world  were  bent  on  getting  one  into 
trouble;  all  around  him  things  seemed 
to  be  waiting  to  make  trouble.  "Why 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

should  the  bull  hook  me?  I've  done 
nothing  to  tie  lull." 

They  were  about  finishing  breakfast. 
He  was  eating  in  his  slow  ruminant 
way — he  ate  enormously  but  never 
hungrily.  His  father,  whose  custom  it 
was  to  divide  the  last  half  of  his  break 
fast  with  the  first  half  of  his  news 
paper,  lowered  the  paper  and  looked 
over  the  top. 

"My  son/'  he  said,  "the  bull  has 
horns.  Every  living  creature  is  bound 
to  use  everything  it  has.  Use  what 
you  have  or  lose  what  you  have — that 
is  the  terrible  law  in  this  world.  There 
fore  the  bull  is  obliged  to  hook  what 
he  can  to  keep  his  horns  going.  If  you 
give  him  the  chance,  he  will  practise 
them  on  you.  Otherwise  his  great- 
great-grandson  might  not  have  any 

10 


THE     HOME 

horns  when  he  really  needed  them. 
Do  you  understand?" 

"No,"  said  Webster. 

'Til  explain  again  when  you  are 
mature  enough  to  comprehend,"  said 
his  father,  returning  to  his  paper. 

Webster  returned  to  the  subject. 

"If  I  ever  have  any  money  in  my 
pocket,  you  always  tell  me  not  to  spend 
it:  now  you  say  I  ought  to  use  what 
ever  I  have." 

His  father  quickly  lowered  his  paper 
and  raised  his  voice: 

"I  have  never  said  that  you  must 
use  everything  all  at  once,  my  son. 
You  must  learn  to  use  it  at  the  right 
time." 

"When  is  the  right  time  to  use  a 
thing?"  asked  Webster,  eating  quietly 
on. 

1 1 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

"Til  answer  that  question  when  it 
is  necessary/'  his  father  replied  grum- 
blingly  from  behind  his  paper,  putting 
an  end  to  the  disturbance. 

A  few  weeks  prior  to  this  breakfast- 
scene  Webster  one  day  at  recess  had 
laid  bare  a  trouble  in  himself,  confiding 
it  to  one  of  his  intimate  school-mates. 
He  did  so  with  a  tone  of  uncertainty, 
for  he  was  not  sure  but  he  was  not 
being  disloyal. 

"Can  your  father  answer  all  the 
questions  you  ask  him?" 

"Not  half  of  them!"  exclaimed  the 
comrade  with  splendid  candour — "Not 
half!" 

"My  father  answers  very  few  /  ask 
him"  interposed  a  fragile  little  white- 
faced  fellow  who  had  strolled  up  in 
time  to  catch  the  drift  of  the  confiden- 

12 


THE     HOME 

tial  talk.  He  did  not  appear  strong 
enough  even  to  put  a  question:  he 
nursed  a  ragged  ball,  had  lost  a  front 
tooth,  and  gave  off  the  general  skim- 
milk  look  which  some  children  carry 
about  with  them. 

Webster,  without  inquiring  further, 
began  to  feel  a  new  respect  for  himself 
as  not  being  worse  off  than  other  boys 
as  to  fathers;  also  a  new  respect  for 
his  father  as  not  being  worse  than  his 
class:  fathers  were  deficient! 

Remembering  this  discovery  at 
school — one  of  the  big  pleasant  ideas 
he  picked  up  outside  lessons — he  did 
not  on  the  morning  in  question  press 
his  father  more  closely  as  to  using  horns 
when  you  have  them  and  not  using 
money  when  you  have  it.  In  fact,  he 
was  already  beginning  to  shield  his 

13 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

father  and  had  quite  ceased  to  interro 
gate  him  in  company,  lest  he  expose 
some  ignorance.  He  therefore  credited 
this  incident  where  it  belonged:  as  a 
part  of  his  growing  knowledge  that  he 
couldn't  look  to  his  father  for  any  great 
help  on  things  that  puzzled  him — 
fathers,  as  had  been  said,  being  defi 
cient,  though  always  contriving  to  look 
so  proficient  that  from  merely  survey 
ing  them  you  would  never  suspect  the 
truth. 

Webster's  father  was  a  minor  book 
keeper  in  one  of  the  city's  minor  banks. 
Like  his  bankbooks,  he  was  always 
perfectly  balanced,  perfectly  behaved; 
and  he  was  also  perfectly  bald.  Even 
his  baldness  might  have  been  credited 
to  him  as  one  of  the  triumphs  of  exact 
calculation:  the  baldness  of  one  side 


THE     HOME 

being  exactly  equal  to  the  baldness  of 
the  other:  hardly  a  hair  on  either  ex 
posure  stood  out  as  an  unaccounted- 
for  remainder. 

Webster  thought  of  his  father  as 
having  worked  at  nothing  but  arith 
metic  for  nearly  forty  years.  Some 
times  it  became  a  kind  of  disgust  to 
him  to  remember  this:  as  was  his 
custom  when  displeased  at  anything 
he  grew  contemptuous.  In  one  of  his 
contemptuous  moments  he  one  day 
asked: 

"How  many  times  have  you  made 
the  figure  2?" 

"Three  quadrillion  times,  my  son/' 
replied  his  father  with  perfect  accuracy 
and  a  spirit  of  hourly  freshness.  His 
father  went  on : 

"The  same  number  of  times  for  all 

15 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

of  them.  When  you're  in  the  thou 
sands,  you  may  think  one  or  the  other 
figure  is  ahead,  but  when  you  get 
well  on  into  the  millions,  there  isn't 
any  difference:  they  are  neck  and 
neck/' 

This  subject  of  arithmetic  was  the 
sorest  that  father  and  son  could  have 
broached :  perhaps  that  was  the  reason 
why  neither  could  get  away  from  it. 
The  family  lived  on  arithmetic  or  off 
it — had  married  on  it,  were  born  unto 
it,  were  fed  by  it,  housed  and  heated 
by  it,  ventilated  and  cooled  by  it. 
Webster's  father's  knowledge  of  arith 
metic  had  marched  at  the  head  of  the 
family  as  they  made  their  way  through 
time  and  trouble  like  music.  It  had 
been  a  lifelong  bugle-blast  of  correct 
numerals. 

16 


THE     HOME 

Hence  the  terrible  disappointment: 
after  Webster  had  been  at  school  long 
enough  for  grading  to  begin  to  come 
home  as  to  what  faculties  he  possessed 
and  the  progress  he  made,  his  parents 
discovered  to  their  terror  and  shame 
that  he  was  good  in  nothing  and  least 
good  in  arithmetic.  It  was  like  a 
child's  turning  against  his  own  bread 
and  butter  and  shirt  and  shoes.  To  his 
father  it  meant  a  clear  family  break 
down.  The  moment  had  come  to  him 
which,  in  unlike  ways,  comes  to  many 
a  father  when  he  feels  obliged  to  say: 
"This  is  no  son  of  mine."  / 

In  reality,  Webster's  father  had 
had  somewhat  that  feeling  from  the 
first.  When  summoned  and  permitted, 
he  had  tipped  into  the  room  on  the  day 
of  Webster's  birth  and  taken  a  father's 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

anxious  defensive  look.  He  had  turned 
off  with  a  gesture  of  repudiation  but  of 
the  deepest  respect : 

"No  such  head  and  countenance  ever 
descended  to  him  from  me!  We  must 
be  square  with  him  from  the  start!  I 
place  to  his  credit  the  name  of  Daniel 
Webster.  His  mother,  instead  of  ad 
miring  her  husband,  had  been  gazing 
too  fondly  at  the  steel  engraving  of  the 
statesman  over  the  mantelpiece  in  the 
parlour." 

When  Webster  was  several  years  old, 
one  day  during  a  meal — nobody  knew 
just  what  brought  forth  the  question 
— he  asked : 

"Why  was  I  named  Webster?" 

His  father  answered : 

"Because  you  looked  like  him." 

Webster  got  up  quietly  and  went 

18 


THE     HOME 

into  the  parlour  and  quietly  returned 
to  his  seat  at  table: 

"No,  I  don't  look  like  him/'  he  said. 

"You  looked  like  him  the  day  you 
were  born,  my  son.  Any  resemblance 
to  Daniel  Webster  is  apt  to  become  less 
and  less.  Finally,  you  don't  look  like 
him  any  more.  In  the  United  States 
Senate  nowadays,  for  instance,  there 
isn't  a  trace  of  resemblance  left  any 
where.  Senators  at  present  look  more 
like  me  and  you  know  what  that  means : 
it  means  that  nobody  need  feel  ob 
liged  to  think  of  Daniel  Webster!" 

That  birthday  jest — that  he  was 
not  quite  entitled  to  the  nativity  of 
his  own  son,  an  uneasiness  perhaps  in 
herited  by  fathers  from  the  rudimen 
tary  marriages  of  primitive  society — 
was  but  a  jest  then.  It  gradually  took 

19 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

on  serious  meaning  as  his  son  grew 
further  away  from  him  with  each 
year  of  growth.  The  bad  passing 
of  the  arithmetic  milestone  had 
brought  the  worst  distinct  shock. 
Still,  even  that  left  Webster's  father 
perfectly  balanced,  perfectly  behaved: 
he  remained  proud  of  his  unlike  off 
spring,  fed  and  clothed  him,  and  was 
fond  of  him. 

There  is  a  bare  possibility  also  that 
in  Webster  he  saw  the  only  chance  to 
risk  part  of  his  salary  in  secret  specu 
lation.  Nearly  everybody  in  the  town 
gambled  on  something.  The  bank  did 
not  favour  the  idea  that  its  employees 
should  enjoy  any  such  monetary 
pastime.  But  even  a  bank  cannot 
prevent  a  father  from  betting  on  his 
own  son  if  he  keeps  the  indiscretion 

20 


TH  E     HOM  E 

to  himself.  Thus  it  is  barely  possible 
that,  in  the  language  of  the  country, 
Webster's  father  took  chances  on  Web 
ster  as  a  winning  colt  on  some  unknown 
track,  if  he  should  ever  take  a  notion 
to  run!  Why  not  bet,  if  it  cost  the 
same  as  not  to  bet:  at  least  you  had 
the  excitement? 

Webster  on  his  part  grew  more  and 
more  into  the  belief  that  his  father  not 
only  could  not  answer  his  questions 
but — what  was  of  far  greater  conse 
quence — did  not  open  up  before  him 
any  path  in  life.  His  first  natural  and 
warm  desire  had  been  to  imitate  his 
father,  to  follow  in  his  footsteps :  slowly 
he  discovered  that  his  father  did  not 
have  any  footsteps,  he  made  no  path. 
His  affection  still  encircled  his  father 
like  a  pair  of  arms ;  his  eyes  had  com- 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

pletely  abandoned  him  as  a  sign-post 
on  life's  road. 

Mothers  often  open  up  roads  for 
their  sons  or  point  them  out,  but  Web 
ster  could  not  look  to  his  mother  for 
one  unless  he  had  wished  to  take  a 
short  road  to  an  uneventful  past.  The 
kind  of  a  mother  she  was  resulted  from 
the  kind  of  a  wife  she  was.  She  had 
taken  her  husband's  arm  at  marriage 
to  keep  step  at  his  side  through  life. 
Had  he  moved  forward,  she  would  have 
moved  forward.  Since  he  did  not  ad 
vance,  but  in  his  life-work  represented 
a  kind  of  perpetual  motion  without 
progress,  she  stayed  by  him  and  busied 
herself  with  multifarious  daily  little 
motions  of  her  own.  Her  roadless  life 
had  one  main  path  of  memory.  That 
led  her  backward  to  a  large  orchard  and 

22 


THE     HOME 

garden  and  yard  out  in  the  country, 
filled  with  fruit  trees  and  berry-bearing 
bushes  and  vines.  She,  now  a  middle- 
aged  wife  and  mother,  was  a  sentimen 
tal  calendar  of  far-away  things  "just 
ripe."  The  procession  of  fruit-and- 
berry  wagons  past  the  cottage  from 
May  to  October  had  upon  her  the 
effect  of  an  acute  exacerbation  of  this 
chronic  lament.  The  street  cry  of  a 
vendor,  no  matter  how  urgent  her  duty 
anywhere  in  the  cottage  at  the  mo 
ment,  brought  her  to  a  front  window 
or  to  the  front  porch  or  even  swept  her 
out  to  the  front  gate,  to  gratify  her 
eyes  with  memories  and  pay  her  re 
spects  to  the  impossible.  She  inquired 
the  cost  of  so  much  and  bought  so  little 
that  the  drivers,  who  are  keen  and  un 
favourable  judges  of  human  nature, 

23 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

when  they  met  at  cross  streets  and 
compared  notes — the  disappointed,  ex 
asperated  drivers  named  her  Mrs.  Price: 
though  one  insisted  upon  calling  her 
Lady  Not-Today.  Whenever  at  the  bot 
tom  of  her  pocketbook  she  found  spare 
change  for  a  box  of  brilliant,  transpar 
ent  red  cherries,  she  bore  it  into  the 
cottage  as  rapaciously  as  some  miser 
of  jewels  might  have  carried  off  a  cas 
ket  of  rubies.  Thus  you  could  almost 
have  said  that  Webster  had  been  born 
of  arithmetic  and  preserves.  Still,  his 
life  with  his  father  and  mother  was 
wholesome  and  affectionate  and  peace 
ful — an  existence  bounded  by  the  hori 
zon  of  the  day. 

His  boyhood  certainly  had  no  wide 
field  of  vision,  no  distant  horizon,  as  re 
gards  his  sleeping  quarters.  In  build- 

24 


THE     HOME 

ing  the  cottage  a  bathroom  on  the  first 
floor  had  been  added  to  one  side  of  it 
as  a  last  luxurious  afterthought.  If 
you  stood  before  the  cottage  and  looked 
it  squarely  in  the  face,  the  bathroom 
protruded  on  one  side  like  a  badly 
swollen  jaw.  The  building-plan  when 
worked  out,  had  involved  expense  be 
yond  the  calculation,  as  usually  hap 
pens,  and  this  had  threatened  the  Sal 
ary:  the  extra  bath,  therefore,  remained 
unrealised.  Webster  always  asked  at 
least  one  question  about  everything 
new  and  untried,  and  when  old  enough 
to  be  put  there  to  sleep,  he  had  looked 
around  the  cramped  enclosure  and  in 
quired  why  it  had  been  built.  Thus 
he  learned  that  in  the  family  he  had 
now  taken  the  place  of  the  Bath  That 
Failed.  It  caused  him  a  queer  feeling 

25 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

as  to  his  general  repute  in  the  neigh 
bourhood  that  the  very  sight  of  him 
might  bring  to  any  observer's  mind 
thoughts  of  a  missing  tub. 

His  window  opened  upon  a  few  feet 
of  yard.  Just  over  the  fence  was  the 
kitchen  window  of  the  cottage  next  in 
the  row.  When  that  window  was  open, 
Webster  had  to  see  the  kitchen  table 
and  the  preparation  for  meals.  He 
violently  disliked  the  sight  of  the  prep 
arations.  If  the  window  was  closed, 
tidings  as  to  what  was  going  on  reached 
him  through  another  sense;  his  bed 
room-bathroom  became  as  a  whisper 
ing  gallery  of  cooking  odours.  But 
their  own  kitchen  was  just  across  a 
narrow  hall,  and  fragrances  from  it 
occasionally  mingled  with  those  from 
the  kitchen  over  the  fence.  Made 

26 


TH  E     HOME 

hungry  by  nasal  intelligence  of  some 
thing  appetising,  Webster  would  some 
times  hurriedly  dress  and  follow  his 
pointer  into  the  breakfast  room,  only 
to  find  that  he  was  on  a  false  trail: 
what  he  had  expected  to  get  his  share 
of  was  being  consumed  by  the  family 
next  door.  He  no  longer  had  confi 
dence,  so  to  speak,  in  his  own  nose — 
not  as  a  leading  authority  on  meals  to 
be  eaten  by  him.  ^ 

One  beautiful  use  his  window  had, 
one  glorious  use,  one  enchantment.  In 
the  depth  of  winter  sometimes  of  morn 
ings  when  he  got  out  of  bed  and  went 
to  open  the  shutter,  on  the  window 
panes  would  be  a  forest  of  glittering 
trees.  The  first  time  he  beheld  such  a 
forest,  he  stood  before  it  spell-bound: 
wondering  whether  there  were  silvery 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

birds  singing  far  off  amid  the  silvery 
boughs  and  what  wild  frost-creatures 
crouched  in  the  tall  stiff  frost-grass. 
From  the  ice-forests  on  his  window 
panes  his  thoughts  always  returned  to 
the  green  summer  forest  on  the  distant 
horizon. 

The  pest  of  his  existence  at  home  was 
Elinor — a  year  younger  but  much  older 
in  her  ways:  to  Webster  she  was  as  old 
as  Mischief,  as  old  as  Evil.  For  Elinor 
had  early  fastened  herself  upon  his  ex 
istence  as  a  tease.  She  laughed  at 
him,  ridiculed  his  remarks,  especially 
when  he  thought  them  wise,  dragged 
down  everything  in  him.  As  they  sat 
at  table  and  he  launched  out  upon  any 
subject  with  his  father — quite  in  the 
manner  of  one  gentleman  indulging  his 
intellect  with  another  gentleman  over 

28 


THE     HOME 

their  rich  viands — Elinor  went  away  up 
into  a  little  gallery  of  her  own  and 
tried  to  boo  him  off  the  stage.  His 
father  and  mother  did  not  at  times  con 
ceal  their  amusement  at  Elinor's  boo's. 
He  sometimes  broke  out  savagely  at 
her,  which  only  made  her  worse.  His 
mother,  who  was  not  without  gentle 
firmness  and  a  saving  measure  of  good 
sense,  one  day  disapproved  of  his  tem 
per  and  remarked  advisedly  to  him, 
Elinor  having  fled  after  a  victory  over 
him: 

"Elinor  teases  you  because  she  sees 
that  it  annoys  you.  She  ought  to 
keep  on  teasing  you  till  you  stop  being 
annoyed.  When  she  sees  that  she 
can't  tease  you,  she'll  stop  trying." 

That  was  all  very  well:  but  one  day 
he  teased  Elinor.  She  puckered  up  and 

29 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

began  to  cry  and  his  mother  said 
quickly : 

"Don't  do  that,  Webster/' 

Then  besides:  a  few  years  before  he 
had  one  day  overheard  his  mother  per 
suading  his  father  that  Elinor  must 
not  be  sent  to  the  public  school. 

"  I  want  her  to  go  to  a  private  school. 
She  has  such  a  difficult  disposition,  it 
will  require  delicate  attention.  The 
teachers  haven't  time  to  give  her  that 
patient  attention  in  the  public  schools." 

"My  dear,"  Elinor's  father  had  re 
plied,  shaking  his  head,  "your  hus 
band's  salary  is  not  a  private-school 
salary.  It  also  has  a  difficult  disposi 
tion,  it  also  requires  the  most  careful 
watching!" 

"The  cost  will  be  more  but  she  must 
go.  Some  extra  expense  will  be  un- 

30 


THE     HOME 

avoidable  even  for  her  clothing  but 
I'll  take  that  out  of  my  clothes/' 

"  You  will  do  nothing  of  the  kind !  If 
Elinor  has  a  difficult  disposition,  she 
gets  it  from  Elinor's  father;  for  le  had 
one  once,  thank  God!  He  had  it  until 
he  went  into  the  bank.  But  a  bank 
takes  every  kind  of  disposition  out  of 
you,  good  or  bad.  After  you've  been 
in  a  bank  so  many  years,  you  haven't 
any  more  disposition.  Only  the  presi 
dent  of  a  bank  enjoys  the  right  to  have 
a  disposition.  All  the  rest  of  us  are 
mere  habits — certain  habits  on  uncer 
tain  salaries.  Let  Elinor  go  to  her 
select  school  and  I'll  go  a  little  more 
ragged.  The  outside  world  thinks  it  a 
bank  joke  when  they  look  through  the 
windows  and  see  bank  clerks  at  work 
in  ragged  coats :  instead  they  know  bet- 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

ter.  Let  Elinor  go  and  let  the  damages 
fall  on  her  father.  He  will  be  glad  to 
take  the  extra  cost  off  his  own  back  as 
a  tribute  to  his  unbanked  boyhood.  I 
hope  you  noticed  my  pun — my  dooble 
intender." 

Thus  Elinor  was  sent  to  the  most 
select  private  school  of  the  city.  Web 
ster  weighed  the  matter  on  the  scales 
of  boyish  justice.  If  you  had  a  bad 
disposition,  you  were  rewarded  by  be 
ing  better  dressed  and  being  sent  to  the 
best  school;  if  you  had  a  good  disposi 
tion,  you  dressed  plainly  and  went  to 
the  public  school.  What  ought  he  to  do 
about  his  own  disposition?  Why  not 
turn  it  into  a  bad  one?  It  was  among 
Webster's  bewilderments  that  he  was 
so  poorly  off  as  not  to  be  able  to  mus 
ter  a  troublesome  enough  disposition  to 

32 


THE     HOME 

be  sent  to  one  of  the  city's  select 
private  schools  for  boys:  he  should 
very  much  have  liked  to  go! 

"I  go  to  a  private  school  because  I 
am  nice'9  Elinor  had  boasted  to  him 
one  morning.  She  was  sitting  on  the 
front  steps  as  he  came  out  on  his  way 
to  school,  and  she  looked  very  dainty 
and  very  charming — a  dark,  wiry,  fiery, 
restless  little  creature,  and  at  the  mo 
ment  a  bit  of  brilliant  decoration.  "And 
I  get  nice  marks,"  she  added  pointedly. 

He  paused  to  make  a  quietly  con 
temptuous  reply. 

"Of  course  you  get  nice  marks :  that's 
what  private  schools  are  for — to  give 
everybody  nice  marks.  If  you  went  to 
the  public  school,  you'd  get  what  you 
deserved." 

"Then   you   seem   to  deserve   very 

33 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

little,"  said  Elinor,  smoothing  a  lock 
of  her  black  hair  over  one  ear. 

His  rage  burst  out  at  her  deadly 
thrust: 

"You  go  to  a  private  school  because 
you  are  a  little  devil,"  he  said. 

"Why  don't  you  be  a  little  devil 
too?"  inquired  Elinor,  her  bright  eyes 
mocking  him.  "Can't  you  be  a  little 
devil  too?" 

He  jerked  the  strap  tighter  around 
his  battered  books : 

"If  you  were  in  the  public  schools, 
they  wouldn't  put  up  with  you.  They'd 
send  you  home  or  they'd  break  you 
in." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  Elinor, 
with  an  encouraging  smile,  "they  seem 
to  get  along  with  you  very  well." 

Webster  knew  that  Elinor's  teasing, 

34 


THE     HOME 

ridiculing  eyes  followed  him  as  he 
walked  away.  They  became  part  of 
the  things  that  cheapened  him  in  his 
life.  When  he  had  passed  through  the 
front  gate,  he  started  off  in  a  direction 
which  was  not  the  direction  to  school. 

Elinor  sang  out  shrilly: 

"  I  know  where  you  are  going.  But 
it's  of  no  use.  Jenny's  sweetheart  goes 
to  a  private  school  and  he  stands  well 
in  his  classes." 

He  walked  on,  but  turned  his  face 
toward  her: 

"It's  none  of  your  meddlesome  busi 
ness,  you  little  black  scorpion,"  he  said 
quietly. 

With  an  upward  bound  of  his  nature 
he  thought  of  Jenny,  a  very  different 
sort  of  girl. 

Jenny  lived  in  the  largest  cottage  of 

35 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

the  block,  at  the  better  of  the  two  cor 
ners.  The  families  visited  intimately. 
Jenny's  father  was  a  coal  merchant  and 
Webster's  father  bought  his  coal  of 
Jenny's  father.  A  grocer  lived  in  the 
middle  of  the  block:  he  bought  supplies 
from  that  grocer.  "If  you  can,"  he 
said,  "deal  with  your  neighbours.  It 
will  make  them  more  careful:  they 
won't  dare  .  .  .!"  On  the  contrary, 
Jenny's  father  did  not  deposit  his 
cheques  in  Webster's  father's  bank. 
"  Don't  do  your  business  with  a  neigh 
bour,"  he  said.  "Neighbours  pry." 

Jenny  represented  in  Webster's  life 
the  masculine  awakening  of  his  nature 
toward  womankind.  In  the  white  light 
of  that  general  dawn,  she  stood  re 
vealed  but  not  recognised.  A  little 
thing  had  happened,  the  summer  pre- 


THE     HOME 

vious,  which  was  of  common  interest 
to  them.  In  a  corner  of  Jenny's  yard 
grew  a  locust  tree,  not  a  full  forest- 
sized  locust  tree  but  still  quite  a  re 
spectable  locust  tree  for  its  place  and 
advantages.  All  around  the  trunk  and 
up  the  trunk  clambered  the  trumpet- 
vine.  Several  yards  from  the  earth 
some  of  the  branches  bent  over  and 
spread  out  as  a  roof  for  a  little  arbour 
— Jenny's  summer  play-house. 

One  dewy  morning  Jenny  had  first 
noticed  a  humming-bird  hovering  about 
the  blossoms.  She  did  not  know  that 
it  was  the  ruby-throat,  seeking  the 
trumpet-vine  where  Audubon  painted 
him.  She  only  knew  that  she  was  ex 
cited  and  delighted.  She  told  Web 
ster. 

"If  he  comes  back,  run  and  tell  me, 

37 


THE      KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

will  you,  Jenny?"  he  pleaded,  with 
some  strange  new  joy  in  him.  Several 
times  she  had  run  and  summoned  him; 
and  the  two  children,  unconsciously 
drawing  nearer  to  each  other,  and  hand 
in  hand  watched  the  ruby-throat  hover 
ing  about  the  adopted  flower  of  the 
State. 

The  distant  green  forest  and  the 
locust  tree  with  the  trumpet-vine  and 
the  humming-bird — these,  though  dis 
tant  from  one  another,  became  in 
Webster's  mind  part  of  something 
deep  and  powerful  in  his  life,  toward 
which  he  was  moving. 

If  no  road  opened  before  him  at 
home,  none  opened  at  school.  He 
would  gladly  have  quit  any  day.  He 
tried  to  make  lessons  appear  worse 
than  they  were  in  order  to  justify  him- 

38 


THE     HOME 

self  in  his  philosophy  of  contempt  and 
rejection. 

When  any  two  old  ladies  met  on  the 
street,  he  argued,  they  did  not  begin 
to  parse  as  fast  as  possible  at  each  other. 
Old  gentlemen  of  the  city  did  not  walk 
up  and  down  with  books  glued  to  their 
noses,  trying  to  memorise  things  they 
would  rather  forget.  When  people 
went  to  the  library  for  delightful  books 
to  read,  nobody  took  home  arithme 
tics  and  geographies.  There  wasn't  a 
grown  person  in  the  city  who  cared 
what  bounded  Indiana  on  the  north 
or  if  all  the  creeks  in  Maine  emptied 
into  the  mouths  of  school  teachers.  In 
church,  when  the  minister  climbed  to 
the  pulpit,  the  congregation  didn't  be 
gin  to  examine  him  in  history.  They 
didn't  even  examine  him  in  the  Bible; 

39 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

he  couldn't  have  stood  the  examina 
tion  if  they  had.  In  the  court-room, 
at  the  fair,  at  the  races,  at  the  theatre, 
when  you  were  born,  when  you  were 
playing,  when  you  had  a  sweetheart, 
when  you  married,  when  you  were  a 
father,  when  you  were  sick,  when  you 
were  in  any  way  happy  or  unhappy, 
when  you  were  dying,  when  you  were 
dead  and  buried  and  forgotten,  nobody 
called  for  school  books. 

Webster,  nevertheless,  both  at  home 
and  at  school  made  his  impression.  No 
one  could  have  defined  the  nature  of 
the  impression  but  every  one  knew  he 
made  it.  If  he  failed  at  his  lessons,  his 
teachers  were  not  angry;  they  looked 
mortified  and  said  as  little  as  possible 
and  all  the  while  pushed  him  along  by 
hook  or  crook,  until  at  last  they  had 

40 


THE     HOME 

smuggled  him  into  high  school — the 
final  heaven  of  the  whole  torment. 

The  impression  upon  his  school  fel 
lows  was  likewise  strongly  in  his  favour. 
Toward  the  close  of  each  session  there 
was  intense  struggle  and  strain  for  the 
highest  mark  in  class  and  the  next 
highest  and  the  next.  When  the  nerve- 
racking  race  was  over  and  everybody 
had  time  to  look  around  and  inquire 
for  Webster,  they  could  see  him  can 
tering  quietly  down  the  home  stretch, 
unmindful  of  the  good-natured  jeers 
that  greeted  his  arrival:  he  had  gone 
over  the  course,  he  had  not  run.  As 
soon  as  they  were  out  of  doors  in  a 
game,  Webster  stepped  to  the  front. 
Those  who  had  just  outstripped  him 
now  followed  him. 

Roadless    parents — a   child    looking 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

for  its  road  in  life!  That  is  Nature's 
plan  to  stop  imitation,  to  block  the 
roads  of  parents  to  their  children,  and 
force  these  into  new  paths  for  the  de 
velopment  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  race.  And  in  what  other  country 
is  that  spectacle  so  common  as  in  our 
American  democracy,  where  progress 
is  so  swift  and  the  future  so  vast  and 
untrod  and  untried  that  nearly  every 
generation  in  thousands  of  cottages 
represents  a  revolt  and  a  revolution  of 
children  against  their  parents,  their 
work  and  their  ways?  But  Webster's 
father  and  mother  were  not  philoso 
phers  as  to  how  Nature  works  out  her 
plan  through  our  American  democ 
racy:  they  merely  had  their  parental 
apprehensions  and  confidentially  dis 
cussed  these.  What  would  Webster 

42 


THE     HOME 

be,  would  he  ever  be  anything?  He 
would  finish  at  high  school  this  year 
and  it  was  time  to  decide. 

A  son  of  the  grocer  in  the  block  had 
made  an  unexpected  upward  stride  in 
life  and  surprised  all  the  cottagers. 
Webster's  father  and  mother  took  care 
to  bring  this  meritorious  example  to 
their  son's  attention. 

"What  are  you  going  to  be,  Web- 
ster?"  his  mother  asked  one  morning 
at  breakfast,  looking  understandingly 
at  Webster's  father. 

"I  don't  know  what  I'm  going  to 
be,"  Webster  had  replied  unconcern 
edly.  "I  know  I'm  not  going  to  be 
what  le  is!" 

"It  would  never  do  to  try  to  force 
him,"  his  father  said  later.  "Not  him. 
Besides,  think  of  a  couple  of  American 

43 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

parents  undertaking  to  force  their 
children  to  do  anything — any  children ! 
We'll  have  to  wait  a  while  longer.  If 
he's  never  to  be  anything,  of  course 
forcing  could  never  make  him  into 
something.  It  would  certainly  bring 
on  a  family  disturbance  and  the  family 
disturbance  would  be  sure  to  get  on 
my  nerves  at  the  bank  and  I  might 
make  mistakes  in  my  figures/' 

Then  in  the  April  of  that  year,  about 
the  time  the  woods  were  turning  green 
and  he  began  to  look  toward  them  with 
the  old  longing  now  grown  stronger, 
a  great  thing  happened  to  Webster. 


II 

THE    SCHOOL 

NE  clear  morning  of  that 
budding  month  of  April,  a 
professor  from  one  of  the 
two  institutions  of  learning 
in  the  city  stood  before  the  pupils  of 
the  high  school. 

He  was  there  to  fulfill  his  part  of  an 
experimental  plan  which,  through  the 
courtesy  of  all  concerned,  had  been 
started  upon  its  course  at  the  opening 
of  the  session  the  previous  autumn :  that 
members  of  the  two  faculties  should 
be  asked  to  be  good  enough  to  come 


45 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

— some  one  of  them  once  each  month — 
and  address  the  school  on  some  pleas 
ant  field  or  by-field  of  university  work, 
where  learning  at  last  meets  life.  That 
is,  each  professor  was  requested  to  ap 
pear  before  the  ravenous  pupils  of  the 
high  school  with  a  basket  of  ripe  fruit 
from  his  promised  land  of  knowledge 
and  to  distribute  these  as  samples  from 
an  orchard  which  each  pupil,  if  he  but 
chose,  could  some  day  own  for  himself. 
Or  if  he  could  not  quite  bring  anything 
so  luscious  and  graspable  as  fruit,  he 
might  at  least  stand  in  their  full  view 
on  the  boundary  of  his  kingdom  and 
mark  out,  across  that  dubious  Com 
mon  which  lies  between  high  school 
and  college,  a  path  that  would  lead  a 
boy  straight  to  some  one  of  the  world's 
great  highways  of  knowledge. 


THE     SCHOOL 

Eight  professors  had  courteously  re 
sponded  to  this  invitation  and  had  dis 
closed  eight  splendid  roadways  of 
the  world's  study.  The  Latin  profes 
sor  had  opened  up  his  colossal  Roman- 
built  highway  with  its  pictures  of  the 
ages  when  all  the  world's  thoroughfares 
led  to  Rome.  The  professor  of  Greek 
had  disclosed  the  longer  path  which 
leads  back  to  Hellas  with  its  frieze  of 
youth  in  eternal  snow.  The  professor 
of  Astronomy  had  taken  his  band  of 
listeners  forth  into  the  immensities  of 
roadless  space  and  had  all  but  lost 
them  and  the  poor  little  earth  itself  in 
the  coming  and  going  of  myriads  of 
entangled  stars.  Eight  professors  had 
come,  eight  professors  had  gone,  it  was 
now  April,  a  professor  of  Geology,  as 
next  to  the  last  lecturer,  stood  before 
them. 

47 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

Interest  in  the  lectures  had  steadily 
mounted  from  the  first  and  was  now  at 
highest  pitch.  He  faced  an  audience 
eager,  intelligent,  respectful  and  grate 
ful.  On  their  part  they  consented  that 
the  man  before  them  embodied  what 
he  had  come  to  teach — the  blending  of 
life  and  learning.  Plainly  the  study 
of  the  earth's  rocks  had  not  hardened 
him,  acquaintance  with  fossils  had  not 
left  him  a  human  fossil.  And  he  hid 
the  number  of  his  years  within  the  sap 
of  living  sympathies  as  a  tree  hides 
the  notation  of  its  years  within  the 
bark. 

Letting  his  eyes  wander  over  them 
silently  for  a  moment,  he  began  with 
out  waste  of  a  word — a  straightforward 
and  powerful  personality. 

"I  am  going  to  speak  to  you  boys 


THE     SCHOOL 

about  a  boy  who  never  reached  high 
school.  I  want  you  to  watch  how  that 
boy's  life,  first  seen  in  the  distance 
through  mist  and  snow  and  storm  as  a 
faint  glimmering  spark,  rudely  blown 
upon  by  the  winds  of  misfortune,  en 
dangered  and  all  but  ready  to  go  out — 
I  want  you  to  watch  how  that  endan 
gered  spark  of  a  boy's  life  slowly  be 
gins  to  brighten  in  the  distance,  to 
grow  stronger,  and  finally  to  draw  nearer 
and  nearer  until  at  last  it  shines  as  a 
great  light  about  you  here  in  this  very 
place.  Watch,  I  say,  how  a  troubled 
ray,  low  on  life's  horizon,  at  last  be 
comes  a  star  in  the  world  of  men,  high 
fixed  and  resplendent — to  be  seen  by 
human  eyes  as  long  as  there  shall  be 
human  eyes  to  see  anything." 

He  saw  that  he  had  caught  their  at- 

49 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

tention.    Their  sympathy  reacted  upon 
him. 

"  Before  I  speak  of  the  boy  I  wish  to 
speak  of  a  book.  I  hope  all  of  you  have 
read  one  of  the  very  beautiful  stories 
of  English  literature  by  George  Eliot 
called  Silas  Marner.  If  you  have, 
none  of  you  will  ever  forget  that  Silas 
Marner  belonged  to  a  class  of  pallid, 
undersized  men  who,  a  hundred  or  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  under 
pressure  upon  the  centres  of  popula 
tion  in  England  and  through  compe 
tition  of  trade,  were  driven  out  of  the 
towns  into  the  country.  There,  as 
strangers,  as  alien-looking  remnants  of 
a  discredited  race,  there  in  districts  far 
away  among  the  lanes  or  in  the  deep 
bosom  of  the  hills,  perhaps  an  hour's 
ride  from  any  turnpike  or  beyond  the 

50 


THE      SCHOOL 

faint  sound  of  the  coach-horn,  they 
spent  their  lives  as  obscure  weavers 
and  peddlers. 

"You  will  never  forget  George  Eliot's 
vivid,  powerful,  touching  picture  of 
Silas  Marner  at  work  in  a  little  stone 
cottage  near  a  deserted  stone  pit,  amid 
the  nut-bearing  hedgerows  of  the 
village  of  Raveloe.  When  the  school 
boys  of  the  village  came  to  the  hedges 
in  autumn  to  gather  nuts  or  in  spring 
to  look  for  bird-nests — you  boys  still 
do  that,  I  hope — when  they  came  and 
heard  the  uncanny  sound  of  the  loom, 
so  unlike  that  of  the  familiar  flail  on 
threshing  floors,  they  would  crowd 
around  the  windows  and  peep  in  at  the 
weaver  in  his  treadmill  attitude,  weav 
ing  like  a  solitary  spider  month  after 
month  and  year  after  year  his  endless 

5' 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

web.  Silas  Marner,  pausing  in  his 
work  to  adjust  some  trouble  in  his 
thread  and  discovering  them  and  an 
noyed  by  the  intrusion,  would  descend 
from  the  loom  and  come  to  his  door 
and  gaze  out  at  them  with  his  strange, 
blurred,  protuberant  eyes;  for  he  was 
so  near-sighted  that  he  could  see  dis 
tinctly  only  objects  close  to  him,  such 
as  his  thread,  his  shuttle,  his  loom. 

"If  for  a  few  days  the  sound  of  the 
loom  stopped,  it  was  because  the 
weaver,  with  his  pack  on  his  feeble 
shoulders,  was  away  on  journeys 
through  fields  and  lanes  to  deliver 
his  linen  to  those  who  had  ordered  it 
or  who  might  haply  buy. 

"The  village  of  Raveloe,  as  you  re 
member,  lay  on  the  rich,  central  plain 
of  Merry  England,  with  wooded  hol- 

52 


THE     SCHOOL 

lows  and  well-walled  orchards  and  or 
namental  weathercocks  and  church 
spires  rising  peacefully  above  green 
tree-tops.  But  Silas  Marner  saw  noth 
ing  of  the  Merry  England  through 
which  he  peddled  his  cloth.  He  walked 
through  it  all  with  the  outdoor  loneli 
ness  of  those  who  cannot  see.  His 
mother  had  bequeathed  him  knowledge 
of  a  few  herbs;  and  these  were  the  only 
thing  in  nature  that  he  had  ever  grop 
ingly  looked  for  along  hedgerows  and 
lanesides — foxglove  and  dandelion  and 
coltsfoot. 

"Now,  if  you  have  read  the  story, 
you  have  a  far  more  living,  touching 
picture  of  the  life  of  a  weaver  in  those 
distant  times  that  I  could  possibly 
paint.  The  genius  of  George  Eliot 
painted  it  supremely  and  I  point  to 

53 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

her  masterpiece  rather  than  to  any 
faint  semblance  I  could  draw.  What 
I  want  you  to  do  is  to  get  deeply  into 
your  minds  what  the  life  of  a  weaver 
in  those  days  meant:  a  little  further 
on  you  will  understand  why. 

"Next  I  want  you  to  think  of  Silas 
Marner  as  an  all  too  common  figure 
of  the  present  time.  He  is  a  type  of 
those  of  us  who  go  through  our  lives 
all  but  blind  to  the  surpassingly  beau 
tiful  life  of  the  planet  on  which  it  is 
our  strange  and  glorious  destiny  to 
spend  our  human  days.  He  is  a  type 
of  those  of  us  who,  in  town  or  city,  see 
only  the  implements  of  our  trade  or 
business  ever  close  to  our  eyes — our 
shuttle,  our  thread,  our  loom,  of  what 
ever  kind  these  may  be.  When  we  go 
out  into  the  world  of  nature,  he  is  also 

54 


THE     SCHOOL 

a  type  of  those  of  us,  who  recognise 
only  the  few  things  we  need — our  colts 
foot,  our  foxglove,  our  dandelion,  of 
whatever  kind  these  may  be.  In  the 
midst  of  woods  and  fields  we  gaze 
blankly  around  us  with  vision  blurred 
by  ignorance — not  born  blind  but  re 
maining  as  blind  because  we  do  not 
care  or  have  not  learned  to  open  and 
to  train  our  eyes.  We  have  the  out 
door  loneliness  of  Silas  Marner." 

He  waited  a  few  moments  to  allow 
his  words  to  make  their  impression, 
and  long  accustomed  to  the  counte 
nance  of  listeners,  he  felt  sure  that 
they  were  following  him  in  the  road 
he  pursued:  then  he  led  them  for 
ward: 

"Now,  about  the  period  that  George 
Eliot  paints  the  life  of  her  poor  English 

55 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

weaver  there  lived,  not  in  Merry  Eng 
land  but  in  Bonnie  Scotland — and  to  be 
bonnie  is  not  to  be  merry — there  lived 
in  the  little  town  of  Paisley,  in  the  west 
of  Scotland,  a  man  by  the  name  of 
Alexander  Wilson,  a  poor  illiterate 
distiller.  He  had  a  son — the  boy  I  am 
to  tell  you  about. 

"The  poor  illiterate  distiller  and 
father  desired  to  give  his  son  his  name 
but  not  to  assign  him  his  place  in  life, 
not  his  own  road;  he  named  him  Alex 
ander  and  he  wished  him  to  be  not  a 
distiller  but  a  physician.  The  boy's 
mother  was  a  native  of  an  island  of  the 
Hebrides — your  geographies  will  have 
to  tell  you  where  the  Hebrides  are,  for 
doubtless  you  have  all  forgotten!  The 
inhabitants  of  those  wild,  bleak,  storm- 
swept  islands  thought  much  of  danger 


THE     SCHOOL 

and  death  and  therefore  often  of  God. 
Perhaps  the  natives  of  small  islands 
are,  as  a  rule,  either  very  superstitious 
or  very  religious.  His  mother  desired 
him  to  be  a  minister.  You  may  not 
know  that  the  Scotch  people  are,  per 
haps,  peculiarly  addicted  to  being  either 
doctors  of  the  body  or  doctors  of  the 
soul.  The  entire  Scottish  race  would 
appear  to  be  desirous  of  being  physi 
cians  to  something  or  to  somebody— 
not  submitting  easily,  however,  to  be 
doctored ! 

"Thus  the  boy's  father  and  mother 
opened  before  him  the  two  main  hon 
oured  roads  of  Scottish  life  and  bade 
him  choose.  He  chose  neither,  for  he 
was  self-willed  and  wavering,  and  did 
not  know  his  own  mind  or  his  own  wish. 
He  did  know  that  he  would  not  take 

57 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

the  roads  his  parents  pointed  out;  as  to 
them  he  was  a  roadless  boy. 

"His  mother  died  when  he  was  quite 
young,  a  stepmother  stepped  into  a 
stepmother's  place,  and  she  quickly 
decided  with  Scotch  thrift.  A  third 
Scottish  road  should  be  opened  to  the 
boy  and  into  that  he  should  be  pushed 
and  made  to  go:  he  must  be  put  to 
trade.  Accordingly,  when  he  was  about 
eleven  years  old,  he  was  taken  from 
school  and  bound  as  an  apprentice  to 
a  weaver:  we  lament  child  labour  now: 
it  is  an  old  lament. 

"The  boy  hated  weaving  as,  per 
haps,  he  never  hated  anything  else  in 
his  life  and  in  time  he  hated  much  and 
he  hated  many  things.  He  seems  soon 
to  have  become  known  as  the  lazy 
weaver.  Years  afterward  he  put  into 

58 


THE     SCHOOL 

bitter  words  a  description  of  the  weav 
er:  'A  weaver  is  a  poor,  emaciated, 
helpless  being,  shivering  over  rotten 
yarn  and  groaning  over  his  empty  flour 
barrel/  Elsewhere  he  called  the  weaver 
a  scarcecrow  in  rags.  He  wrote  a  poem 
entitled  Groans  from  ihe  Loom. 

"Five  interminable  years  of  those 
groans  and  all  his  eager,  wild,  head 
strong,  liberty-loving  boyhood  was 
ended:  gone  from  him  as  he  sat  like  a 
boy-spider  with  a  thread  passing  end 
lessly  into  a  web.  During  these  inter 
minable  years,  whenever  he  lifted  his 
eyes  from  his  loom  and  looked  ahead, 
he  could  see  nothing  but  penury  and 
dependence  and  loneliness — his  loom 
to  the  end  of  his  life. 

"Five  years  of  this  imprisonment 
and  then  he  was  eighteen  and  his  own 

59 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

master;  and  the  first  thing  he  did  was 
to  descend  from  the  loom,  take  a  pack 
of  cloth  upon  his  shoulders  and  go 
wandering  away  from  the  hills  and  val 
leys  and  lakes  of  Scotland — free  at  last 
like  a  young  deer  in  the  heather.  He 
said  of  himself  that  from  that  hour 
when  his  eyes  had  first  opened  on  the 
light  of  grey  Scotch  mountains,  the 
world  of  nature  had  called  him.  He 
did  not  yet  know  what  the  forest  and 
the  life  of  the  forest  meant  or  would 
ever  mean ;  he  only  knew  that  there  he 
was  happy  and  at  home. 

"Thus,  like  Silas  Marner,  he  became 
a  poor  weaver  and  peddler  but  not  with 
Silas  Marner's  eyes.  Seldom  in  any 
human  head  has  the  mechanism  of 
vision  been  driven  by  a  mind  with  such 
power  and  eagerness  to  observe.  And 

60 


THE     SCHOOL 

he  had  the  special  memory  of  the  eye. 
There  are  those  of  us  who  have  the 
special  memory  of  the  ear  or  of  taste  or 
of  touch.  He  had  the  long,  faithful 
recollection  of  things  seen.  With  this 
pair  of  eyes  during  the  next  several 
years  he  traversed  on  foot  three-fourths 
of  Scotland.  Remember,  you  boys 
of  the  rolling  blue-grass  plateau,  what 
the  scenery  of  Scotland  is !  Think  what 
it  meant  to  traverse  three-fourths  of 
that  country,  you  who  consider  it  a 
hardship  to  walk  five  level  miles,  a 
misfortune  to  be  obliged  to  walk  ten, 
the  adventure  of  a  lifetime  to  walk 
twenty. 

"But  though  he  followed  one  after 
another  well  nigh  all  the  roads  of 
Scotland,  he  could  find  in  all  Scotland 
no  road  of  life  for  him.  It  is  true  that 

61 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

certain  misleading  paths  beckoned  to 
him,  as  is  apt  to  be  true  in  every  life. 
Thus  he  had  conceived  a  great  desire 
to  weave  poetry  instead  of  cloth,  to 
weave  music  instead  of  listening  to  the 
noise  of  the  loom :  he  had  his  flute  and 
his  violin.  But  what  he  accomplished 
with  poetry  and  flute  and  violin  were 
obstacles  to  his  necessary  work  and 
rendered  this  harder.  The  time  he 
gave  to  them  made  his  work  less :  the 
less  his  work,  the  less  his  living;  the 
less  his  living,  the  more  his  troubles 
and  hardships. 

"Once  he  started  out  both  to  peddle 
his  wares  and  to  solicit  orders  for  a 
little  book  of  his  poems  he  wished  to 
publish.  To  help  both  pack  and  poetry 
he  wrote  a  handbill  in  verse.  Some  of 
the  lines  ran  thus: 

62 


THE     SCHOOL 

'"Here's  handkerchiefs  charming,  book  mus 
lins  like  ermine, 

Brocaded,  striped,  corded,  or  checked. 
Sweet  Venus,  they  say,  on  Cupid's  birthday 
In  British-made  muslin  was  decked. 

"'Now,  ye  Fair,  if  you  choose  any  piece  to 

peruse, 

With  pleasure  I'll  instantly  show  it. 
If  the  peddler  should  fail  to  be  favoured  with 

sale, 
Then  I  hope  you'll  encourage  the  poet/ 

'The  result  seems  to  have  been  but 
small  sale  for  British-made  muslins  and 
no  sale  at  all  for  Wilson-made  poems. 

"Robert  Burns  was  just  then  the 
idolised  poet  of  Scotland,  a  new  sun 
shining  with  vital  splendour  into  all 
Scottish  hearts.  Friends  of  the  young 
weaver  and  apparently  the  young  weav 
er  himself  thought  there  was  room  in 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

Scotland  for  another  Burns.  Some  of 
his  poems  were  published  anonymously 
and  the  authorship  was  attributed  to 
Burns.  That  was  bad  for  him,  it  made 
bad  worse.  Wilson  greatly  desired  to 
know  the  rustic  poet-king  of  Scotland. 
The  two  poets  met  in  Edinburgh  and 
were  to  become  friends.  Then  Burns 
published  Tarn  O'Shanter.  As  young 
Kentuckians,  of  course,  you  love  horses 
and  cannot  be  indifferent  even  to 
poems  on  the  tails  of  horses.  There 
fore,  you  must  already  know  the  world's 
most  famous  poem  concerning  a  horse 
tail — Tarn  O'Shanter.  The  Paisley 
weaver  by  this  time  had  such  conceit  of 
himself  as  a  poet  that  he  wrote  Burns 
a  caustic  letter,  telling  him  the  kind  of 
poem  Tarn  O'Shanter  should  and  should 
not  be.  Burns  replied,  closing  the  cor- 


TH  E     SCHOOL 

respondence,  ending  the  brief  friend 
ship  and  leaving  the  weaver  to  go  back 
to  his  loom.  It  was  a  terrible  rebuff, 
and  left  its  mark  on  an  already  dis 
couraged  man. 

"Next  Wilson  wrote  an  anonymous 
poem,  so  violently  attacking  a  wealthy 
manufacturer  on  behalf  of  his  poor 
brother  weavers,  that  the  enraged  mer 
chant  demanded  the  name  of  the 
writer  and  had  him  put  in  prison  and 
compelled  him  to  stand  in  the  public 
cross  of  Paisley  and  burn  his  poem. 

"  Darker,  bitterer  days  followed.  He 
shrank  away  to  a  little  village  even 
more  obscure  than  his  birthplace. 
There,  lifting  his  eyes,  again  he  looked 
all  over  Scotland:  he  saw  the  wrongs 
and  sufferings  of  the  poor,  the  luxury 
and  oppression  of  the  rich:  he  blamed 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

the  British  government  for  evils  in 
herent  in  human  nature  and  for  the 
imperfections  of  all  human  society: 
turned  against  his  native  country  and 
at  heart  found  himself  without  a  father 
land. 

"Then  that  glorious  vision  which  has 
opened  before  so  many  men  in  their 
despair,  disclosed  itself:  his  eyes  turned 
to  America.  You  should  never  forget 
that  from  the  first  your  country  has 
been  the  refuge  and  the  hope  for  the 
oppressed,  the  unfortunate,  the  dis 
couraged  of  the  whole  world.  In 
America  he  thought  all  roads  were  open, 
new  roads  were  being  made  for  human 
lives;  that  should  become  his  country. 
One  autumn  he  saw  in  a  newspaper  an 
advertisement  that  an  American  mer 
chantman  would  sail  from  Belfast  the 

66 


THE     SCHOOL 

following  spring  and  he  turned  to  weav 
ing  and  wove  as  never  before  to  earn 
his  passage  money.  At  this  time  he 
lived  on  one  shilling  a  week!  And  it 
seems  that  just  now  he  undertook  to 
make  up  his  lack  of  knowledge  of  arith 
metic.  Some  of  you  boys  will  doubtless 
greatly  rejoice  to  hear  that  he  was  de 
ficient  in  arithmetic!  When  spring  came, 
with  the  earnings  of  his  loom  he  walked 
across  Scotland  to  the  nearest  port. 
When  he  reached  Belfast  every  berth 
on  the  vessel  had  been  taken:  he  asked 
to  be  allowed  to  sleep  on  the  deck  and 
was  accepted  as  a  passenger. 

"He  had  now  left  Scotland  to  escape 
the  loom — never  to  see  Scotland  again. 

"And  you  see,  he  is  beginning  to 
come  nearer. 

"The  vessel  was  called  The  Swift  and 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

it  took  The  Swift  two  months  to  make 
the  passage.  The  port  was  to  be  Phila 
delphia  but  he  seems  to  have  been  so 
impatient  to  set  foot  on  the  soil  of  the 
New  World  that  he  left  the  ship  at 
New  Castle,  Delaware.  He  had  bor 
rowed  from  a  fellow-passenger  sufficient 
money  to  pay  his  expenses  while  walk 
ing  to  Philadelphia  thirty-four  miles 
away;  and  with  this  in  his  pocket  and 
his  fowling-piece  on  his  shoulder  he 
disappeared  in  the  July  forests  of  New 
Jersey.  The  first  thing  he  did  was  to 
kill  a  red-headed  wood-pecker  which  he 
declared  to  be  the  most  beautiful  bird 
he  had  ever  seen. 

"  I  do  not  find  any  word  of  his  that 
he  had  ever  killed  a  bird  in  Scotland 
during  all  his  years  of  wandering.  Now 
the  first  event  that  befell  him  in  the 

68 


TH  E     SCHOOL 

New  World  was  to  go  straight  to  the 
American  woods  and  kill  what  he  de 
clared  to  be  the  most  beautiful  bird 
he  had  ever  seen.  This  might  naturally 
have  been  to  him  a  sign  of  his  life- 
road.  But  he  still  stood  blinded  in 
his  path,  with  not  a  plan,  not  an  idea, 
of  what  he  should  be  or  could  be:  he 
had  not  yet  read  the  handwriting  on 
the  wall  within  himself. 

"His  first  years  in  the  New  World 
were  more  disastrous  than  any  in  Scot 
land,  for  always  now  he  had  the  lone 
liness  and  dejection  of  a  man  who  has 
rejected  his  own  country  and  does  not 
know  that  any  other  country  will  ac 
cept  him.  A  fellow  Scot,  in  Philadel 
phia,  tried  him  at  copper-plate  print 
ing.  He  quickly  dropped  this  and 
went  back  to  the  old  dreadful  work  of 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

weaving — he  became  an  American 
weaver  and  went  wandering  through 
the  forests  of  New  Jersey  as  a  peddler: 
at  least  peddling  left  him  free  to  roam 
the  forests.  Next  he  tried  teaching 
but  he  himself  had  been  taken  from 
school  at  the  age  of  eleven  and  must 
prepare  himself  as  one  of  his  own  be 
ginners.  He  did  not  like  this  teaching 
experiment  in  New  Jersey  and  mi 
grated  to  Virginia.  Virginia  did  not 
please  him  and  he  remigrated  to  Penn 
sylvania.  There  he  tried  one  school 
after  another  in  various  places  and 
finally  settled  on  the  outskirts  of  Phila 
delphia:  here  was  his  last  school,  for 
here  was  the  turning  point  of  his  life. 

"I  wish  I  had  time  to  describe  for 
you  the  school-house  with  its  surround 
ings,  for  the  place  is  to  us  now  a  pic- 

70 


TH  E     SCHOOL 

ture  in  the  early  American  life  of  a 
great  man — all  such  historic  pictures 
are  invaluable.  Catch  one  glimpse  of 
it:  a  neat  stone  school-house  on  a 
sloping  green;  with  grey  old  white 
oaks  growing  around  and  rows  of  strip 
ling  poplars  and  scattered  cedar  trees. 
A  road  ran  near  and  not  far  away  was  a 
little  yellow-faced  cottage  where  he 
lived.  The  yard  was  walled  off  from 
the  road  and  there  were  seats  within 
and  rosebushes  and  plum  trees  and 
hop-vines.  On  one  side  hung  a  sign 
board  waving  before  a  little  roadside 
inn;  on  the  other  a  blacksmith  shop 
with  its  hammering.  Not  far  off  stood 
the  edge  of  the  great  forest  'resounding 
with  the  songs  of  warblers/  In  the 
depths  of  it  was  a  favourite  spot — a 
secret  retreat  for  him  in  Nature. 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

"There  then  you  see  him:  no  longer 
a  youth  but  still  young;  every  road  he 
had  tried  closed  to  him  in  America  as 
in  Scotland :  not  a  doctor,  not  a  minis 
ter,  not  a  good  poet,  not  a  good  flutist, 
not  a  good  violinist,  not  a  copper 
plate  engraver,  not  a  willing  weaver, 
not  a  willing  peddler,  not  a  willing 
school-teacher — none  of  these.  No  idea 
yet  in  him  that  he  could  ever  be  any 
thing.  A  homeless  self-exile,  playing  at 
lonely  twilights  on  flute  and  violin  the 
loved  airs  of  rejected  Scotland. 

"Now  it  happened  that  near  his 
school  was  a  botanical  garden  owned 
by  an  American  naturalist.  The 
American,  seeing  the  stranger  cast 
down  by  his  aimless  life,  offered  him 
his  portfolio  of  drawings  and  sug 
gested  that  he  try  to  draw  a  landscape, 

72 


THE     SCHOOL 

draw  the  human  figure.  The  Scotch 
weaver,  the  American  school-teacher, 
tried  and  disastrously  failed.  As  a 
final  chance  the  American  suggested 
that  he  try  to  draw  a  bird.  He  did 
try:  he  drew  a  bird.  He  drew  again. 
He  drew  again  and  again.  He  kept 
on  drawing.  Nothing  could  keep  him 
from  drawing.  And  there  at  last  the 
miracle  of  power  and  genius,  so  long 
restless  in  him  and  driving  him  aim 
lessly  from  one  wrong  thing  to  another 
wrong  thing,  disclosed  itself  as  dwell 
ing  within  his  eyes  and  hands.  His 
drawings  were  so  true  to  life,  that 
there  could  be  no  doubt:  the  road  lay 
straight  before  him  and  ran  clear 
through  coming  time  toward  eternal 
fame. 

"All   the  experience  which   he  had 

73 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

been  unconsciously  storing  as  a  ped 
dler  in  Scotland  now  came  back  to 
him  as  guiding  knowledge.  The  mar 
velous  memory  of  his  eye  furnished 
its  discipline:  from  early  boyhood 
through  sheer  love  he  had  uncon 
sciously  been  studying  birds  in  nature, 
and  thus  during  all  these  wretched 
years  had  been  laying  up  as  a  youth 
the  foundation  of  his  lifework  as  a  man. 
"Genius  builds  with  lavish  mag 
nificence  and  inconceivable  swiftness; 
and  hardly  had  he  succeeded  with  his 
first  drawings  before  he  had  wrought 
out  a  monumental  plan:  to  turn  him 
self  free  as  soon  as  possible  into  the 
vast,  untravelled  forest  of  the  North 
American  continent  and  draw  and  paint 
its  birds.  Other  men,  he  said,  would 
have  to  found  the  cities  of  the  New 

74 


THE     SCHOOL 

World  and  open  up  its  country.  His 
study  was  to  be  the  lineaments  of  the 
owl  and  the  plumage  of  the  lark:  he  had 
cast  in  his  lot  with  Nature's  green 
magnificence  untouched  by  man." 

The  lecturer  paused,  as  a  traveller 
instinctively  stops  to  look  around  him 
at  a  pleasant  turn  of  his  road.  It  had, 
in  truth,  been  a  hard,  crooked  human 
road  along  which  he  had  been  leading 
his  young  listeners — a  career  choked 
at  every  step  by  inward  and  outward 
pressures.  He  had  not  failed  to  notice 
the  change  in  every  countenance,  the 
brightening  of  every  eye,  as  soon  as 
his  audience  discovered  that  they  were 
listening  to  a  story,  not  of  mere  weak 
nesses  and  failures,  but  of  the  misfor 
tunes  and  mistakes  of  a  man,  who  at 
last  stood  out  as  truly  great.  This 

75 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

hapless  weaver,  this  aimless  wanderer 
through  the  forests  of  two  worlds,  after 
all  had  success  in  him,  strength  in  him, 
genius  in  him,  fame  in  him !  He  was  a 
hero.  Henceforth  they  were  alive  with 
curiosity  for  the  rest  of  the  story  which 
would  bring  the  distant  hero  to  Ken 
tucky,  to  their  Lexington. 

The  lecturer  realised  all  this.  But 
he  had  for  some  time  been  even  more 
acutely  aware  that  something  wholly 
personal  and  extraordinary  was  tak 
ing  place:  one  of  the  pupils  of  the  high 
school  was  listening  with  an  attention 
so  absorbed  and  noticeable  as  to  set 
him  apart  from  all  the  rest.  Just  at 
what  point  this  intense  attention  had 
been  so  aroused,  had  not  been  observed; 
but  when  once  observed,  there  was 
no  forgetting  it:  it  filled  the  room,  the 


THE     SCHOOL 

other  listeners  were  merely  grouped 
around  it  as  accessories  and  helped  to 
make  its  breathless  picture. 

The  particularly  interested  pupil  sat 
rather  far  back  in  the  school-room, 
near  a  window — as  though  from  a  vain 
wish  to  jump  out  and  be  free.  The 
morning  light  thus  fell  across  his  face: 
it  was  possible  to  watch  its  expression, 
its  responsive  change  of  light  at  each 
turn  of  the  story.  He  seemed  to  hold 
some  kind  of  leadership  in  the  school: 
other  pupils  occasionally  turned  their 
faces  to  glance  at  him,  to  keep  in  touch 
with  him:  he  did  not  return  their 
glances — being  their  leader;  or  he  had 
forgotten  them  for  the  story  he  was 
hearing. 

The  lecturer  became  convinced  that 
what  had  more  than  once  happened 

77 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

to  him  before  as  a  teacher  was  hap 
pening  again:  before  him  a  young  life 
was  unexpectedly  being  solved — to  its 
own  wonderment  and  liberation,  to 
its  amazement  and  joy. 

That  perpetual  miracle  in  nature — 
the  contexture  of  the  generations — 
the  living  taking  the  meaning  of  their 
lives  from  the  dead !  You  stand  beside 
some  all  but  forgotten  mound  of  human 
ashes;  before  you  are  arrayed  a  band 
of  youths,  unconsciously  holding  in 
their  hands  the  unlighted  torches  of 
the  future.  You  utter  some  word 
about  the  cold  ashes  and  silently  one 
of  them  walks  forward  to  the  ashes, 
lights  his  torch  and  goes  his  radiant 
way. 

Thus  the  Geologist  felt  a  graver  re 
sponsibility  resting  on  him — placed 

78 


THE     SCHOOL 

there  by  one  of  them,  more  than  by 
all  of  them :  the  words  he  was  speaking 
might  or  might  not  give  final  direction 
to  a  whole  career.  He  went  on  with 
his  heroic  narrative  more  glowingly, 
more  guardedly : 

"For  a  while  he  must  keep  on  teach 
ing  in  order  to  live:  he  taught  all  day, 
often  after  night,  barely  had  time  to 
swallow  his  meals,  at  the  end  of  one 
term  tells  us  he  had  as  large  a  sum  as 
fifteen  dollars.  Often  he  coloured  his 
first  drawings  by  candle  light,  drew 
and  painted  birds  without  knowing 
what  they  were.  Drawing  and  paint 
ing  by  candle  light! — but  now  he  had 
within  himself  the  risen  sun  of  a  splen 
did  enthusiasm.  That  sun  kindled 
his  school-boys.  They  found  out  what 
he  wanted  and  helped.  One  boy 

79 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

brought  him  a  large  basketful  of  crows. 
Another  caught  a  mouse  in  school  and 
contributed  that — the  incident  is  worth 
quoting  by  showing  that  the  boy  pre 
ferred  a  mouse  to  a  school-book. 

"Take  one  instance  of  the  energy 
with  which  he  was  now  working  and 
worked  for  the  rest  of  his  life:  he 
wished  to  see  Niagara  Falls,  and  to 
lose  no  time  while  doing  it  he  started 
out  one  autumn  through  the  forest  to 
walk  to  the  Falls  and  back,  a  short 
trip  for  him  of  over  twelve  hundred 
miles.  He  reached  home 'mid  the  deep 
snows  of  winter  with  no  soles  to  his 
boots.  What  of  that?  On  his  way 
back  he  had  shot  two  strange  birds  in 
the  valley  of  the  Hudson!  For  ten 
days — ten  days,  mind  you! — he  worked 
on  a  drawing  of  these  and  sent  it  with 

80 


THE     SCHOOL 

a  letter  to  Thomas  Jefferson.  You 
may  as  yet  have  thought  of  Jefferson 
only  as  one  of  America's  earliest  states 
men:  begin  now  to  think  of  him  as 
one  of  the  first  American  naturalists. 
And  if  you  wish  to  read  a  courteous 
letter  from  an  American  President  to 
a  young  stranger,  go  back  to  Jeffer 
son's  letter  to  the  Scotch  weaver  who 
sent  him  the  drawing  of  a  jaybird. 

''Pass  rapidly  over  the  next  few 
years.  He  has  made  one  trip  from 
Maine  down  the  Atlantic  Seaboard  to 
the  South.  He  has  returned  and  is 
starting  out  again  to  cover  the  vast 
interior  basin  of  the  Mississippi  Val 
ley:  he  is  to  begin  at  Pittsburgh  and 
end  at  New  Orleans. 

"Now  again  you  see  that  he  is  com 
ing  nearer — nearer  to  you  here. 

81 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

"Look  then  at  this  bold,  splendid 
picture  of  him  outlined  against  the 
background  of  early  American  life. 
All  such  pictures  are  part  of  our  rich 
est  heritage. 

"The  scene  is  Pittsburgh.  He  has 
ransacked  the  winter  woods  for  new 
species,  he  has  found  only  sparrows 
and  snow-birds.  That  was  the  year 
1810;  this  is  the  year  1916 — over  a 
hundred  years  later  in  the  history  of 
our  country.  Gaze  then  upon  this  wild 
scene  of  the  olden  time,  all  such  pic 
tures  are  good  for  young  eyes:  it  is 
the  twenty-fourth  of  February:  the 
river,  swollen  with  the  spring  flood, 
is  full  of  white  masses  of  moving  ice. 
A  frail  skiff  puts  off  from  shore  and 
goes  winding  its  way  until  it  is  lost  to 
sight  among  the  noble  hills. 

82 


THE     SCHOOL 

They  warned  him  of  his  danger, 
urged  him  to  take  a  rower,  urged  him 
not  to  go  at  all.  Those  who  risked  the 
passage  of  the  river  floated  down  on 
barges  called  Kentucky  arks  or  in 
canoes  hollowed  each  out  of  a  single 
tree,  usually  the  tulip  tree,  which  you 
know  is  very  common  in  our  Kentucky 
woods.  But  to  mention  danger  was 
to  make  him  go  to  meet  it.  He  would 
have  no  rower,  had  no  money  to  hire 
one,  had  he  wished  one.  He  tells  us 
what  he  had  on  board:  in  one  end  of 
the  boat  some  biscuit  and  cheese,  a 
bottle  of  cordial  given  him  by  a  gentle 
man  in  Pittsburgh,  his  gun  and  trunk 
and  overcoat;  at  the  other  end  him 
self  and  his  oars  and  a  tin  with  which 
to  bail  out  the  skiff,  if  necessary,  to 
keep  it  from  sinking  and  also  to  use 

83 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

as  his  drinking-cup  to  dip  from  the 
river. 

"That  February  day — the  swollen, 
rushing  river,  the  masses  of  white  ice — 
the  solitary  young  boatman  borne 
away  to  a  new  world  on  his  great  work: 
his  heart  expanding  with  excitement 
and  joy  as  he  headed  toward  the  un 
explored  wilderness  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley. 

"Wondrous  experiences  were  his: 
from  the  densely  wooded  shores  there 
would  reach  him  as  he  drifted  down, 
the  whistle  of  the  red  bird — those  first 
spring  notes  so  familiar  and  so  wel 
come  to  us  on  mild  days  toward  the 
last  of  February.  Away  off  in  dim 
forest  valleys,  between  bold  headlands, 
he  saw  the  rising  smoke  of  sugar  camps. 
At  other  openings  on  the  landscape, 

84 


THE     SCHOOL 

grotesque  log  cabins  looked  like  dog 
houses  under  impending  mighty  moun 
tains.  His  rapidly  steered  skiff  passed 
flotillas  of  Kentucky  arks  heavily  mak 
ing  their  way  southward,  transporting 
men  and  women  and  children — the 
moving  pioneers  of  the  young  nation: 
the  first  river  merchant-marine  of  the 
new  world:  carrying  horses  and  plows 
to  clearings  yet  to  be  made  for  home 
steads  in  the  wilderness;  transporting 
mill-stones  for  mills  not  yet  built  on 
any  wilderness  stream;  bearing  mer 
chandise  for  the  pioneers  who  in  this 
way  got  their  clothing  until  they  could 
grow  flax  and  weave  to  clothe  them 
selves.  Thus  in  the  Alps  of  the  Alle- 
ghenies  he  came  upon  the  river  ped 
dlers  of  America  as  years  before  amid 
the  Alps  of  Scotland  he  had  come 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

upon  the  foot  peddlers  of  his  own  land. 
On  the  river  were  floating  caravans  of 
men  selling  shawls  and  muslins.  He 
boarded  a  number  of  these  barges;  as 
they  approached  a  settlement,  they 
blew  a  trumpet  or  a  lonely  horn  on 
the  great  river  stillness. 

r'The  first  night  he  drew  in  to  shore 
some  fifty  miles  down  at  a  riverside 
hovel  and  tried  to  sleep  on  the  only 
bed  offered  him — some  corn-stalks.  Un 
able  to  sleep,  he  got  up  before  day  and 
pushed  out  again  into  the  river,  listen 
ing  to  the  hooting  of  the  big-horned 
owl  echoing  away  among  the  dawn- 
dark  mountains,  or  to  the  strangely 
familiar  crowing  of  cocks  as  they 
awoke  the  hen  roosts  about  the  first 
American  settlements  in  the  West. 

"He  records  what  to  us  now  sounds 

86 


THE      SCHOOL 

incredible,  that  on  March  fifth  he  saw 
a  flock  of  parrokeets.  Think  of  parro- 
keets  on  the  Ohio  River  in  March! 
Of  nights  it  turned  freezing  cold  and 
he  drew  liberally  on  his  bottle  of  cor 
dial  for  warmth.  Once  he  encoun 
tered  a  storm  of  wind  and  hail  and  snow 
and  rain,  during  which  the  river  foamed 
and  rolled  like  the  sea  and  he  had  to 
make  good  use  of  his  tin  to  keep  the 
skiff  bailed  out  till  he  could  put  in  to 
shore.  The  call  of  wild  turkeys  en 
ticed  him  now  toward  the  shore  of 
Indiana,  now  toward  the  shore  of 
Kentucky,  but  before  he  reached  either 
they  had  disappeared.  His  first  night 
on  the  Kentucky  shore  he  spent  in  the 
cabin  of  a  squatter  and  heard  him  tell 
tales  of  bear-treeing  and  wildcat-hunt 
ing  and  wolf-baiting.  All  night  wolves 

87 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

howled  in  the  forests  near  by  and  kept 
the  dogs  in  an  uproar;  the  region 
swarmed  with  wolves  and  wildcats 
'black  and  brown/ 

"On  and  on,  until  at  last  the  skiff 
reached  the  rapids  of  the  Ohio  at  Louis 
ville  and  he  stepped  ashore  and  sold 
his  frail  saviour  craft  which,  at  starting, 
he  had  named  the  Ornithologist.  The 
Kentuckian  who  bought  it  as  the  Orni 
thologist  accepted  the  droll  name  as 
that  of  some  Indian  chief.  He  soon 
left  Louisville,  having  sent  his  baggage 
on  by  wagon,  and  plunged  into  the 
Kentucky  forest  on  his  way  to  Lex 
ington. 

"And  now,  indeed,  you  see  he  is 
coming  nearer. 

"It  was  the  twenty-fourth  of  March 
when  he  began  his  first  trip  southward 


THE     SCHOOL 

through  the  woods  of  Kentucky.  Spring 
was  on  the  way  but  had  not  yet  passed 
northward.  Nine-tenths  of  the  Ken 
tucky  soil,  he  states,  was  then  unbroken 
wilderness.  The  surface  soil  was  deeper 
than  now.  The  spring  thaw  had  set  in, 
permeating  the  rich  loam.  He  describes 
his  progress  through  it  as  like  travelling 
through  soft  soap.  The  woods  were 
bare  as  yet,  though  filled  with  pigeons 
and  squirrels  and  wood-peckers.  On 
everything  he  was  using  his  marvellous 
eyes:  looking  for  birds  but  looking  at 
all  human  life,  interested  in  the  whole 
life  of  the  forest.  He  mentions  large 
corn  fields  and  orchards  of  apple  and  of 
peach  trees.  Already  he  finds  the  high 
fences,  characteristic  of  the  Kentucki- 
ans.  He  turned  aside  once  to  visit  a 
roosting  place  of  the  passenger  pigeon. 


THE      KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

"It  was  on  March  twenty-ninth  that, 
emerging  from  the  thick  forest,  he  saw 
before  him  the  little  Western  metrop 
olis  of  the  pioneers,  the  city  of  the  fore 
fathers  of  many  of  us  here  today- 
Lexington.  I  wish  I  could  stop  to  de 
scribe  to  you  the  picture  as  he  painted 
it:  the  town  stretching  along  its  low 
valley;  a  stream  running  through  the 
valley  and  turning  several  mills — water 
mills  in  Lexington  a  hundred  years  ago ! 
In  the  market-place  which  you  now  call 
Cheapside  he  saw  the  pillory  and  the 
stocks  and  he  noted  that  the  stocks 
were  so  arranged  as  to  be  serviceable  for 
gallows:  our  Kentucky  forefathers  ar 
ranged  that  they  should  be  convenient 
ly  hanged,  if  they  deserved  it,  as  a  pub 
lic  spectacle  of  warning. 

"On  a  country  court  day  he  saw  a 

90 


THE     SCHOOL 

thousand  horses  hitched  around  the 
courthouse  square  and  in  churchyards 
and  in  graveyards.  He  states  that 
even  then  Kentucky  horses  were  the 
most  remarkable  in  the  world. 

"He  makes  no  mention  of  one  thing 
he  must  have  seen,  but  was  perhaps 
glad  to  forget — the  weavers  and  the 
busy  looms;  for  in  those  days  Ken- 
tuckians  were  busy  making  good  linen 
and  good  homespun,  as  in  Paisley. 

"He  slept  while  in  Lexington — this 
great  unknown  man — in  a  garret  called 
Salter  White's,  wherever  that  was:  and 
he  shivered  with  cold,  for  you  know  we 
can  have  chill  nights  in  April.  He  says 
that  he  had  no  firewood,  it  being  scarce, 
the  universal  forest  of  firewood  being 
half  a  mile  away:  this  was  like  going 
hungry  in  a  loft  over  a  full  baker-shop. 

91 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

"  And  I  must  not  omit  one  note  of  his 
on  the  Kentuckians  themselves,  which 
flashes  a  vivid  historic  light  on  their 
character.  By  this  time  he  rightly 
considered  that  he  had  had  adventures 
worth  relating;  but  he  declares  that  if 
he  attempted  to  relate  them  to  any 
Kentuckian,  the  Kentuckian  at  once 
interrupted  him  and  insisted  upon  re 
lating  his  own  adventures  as  better 
worth  while.  Western  civilization  was 
of  itself  the  one  absorbing  adventure  to 
every  man  who  had  had  his  share  in  it. 

"Here  I  must  pause  to  intimate  that 
Wilson  all  his  life  carried  with  him  one 
bird — one  vigourous  and  vociferous  bird 
— a  crow  to  pick.  He  picked  it  savagely 
with  Louisville.  But  he  had  begun  to 
pick  it  with  Scotland.  He  had  picked 
it  with  Great  Britain  and  with  New 

92 


THE     SCHOOL 

Jersey  and  Virginia.  In  New  England 
the  feathers  of  the  crow  fairly  flew.  In 
truth,  civilization  never  quite  satisfied 
him;  wild  nature  alone  he  found  no 
fault  with — there  only  was  he  happy 
and  at  home.  He  now  picked  his  crow 
with  Lexington.  Afterward  an  indig 
nant  Kentuckian,  quite  in  the  good 
Kentucky  way,  attacked  him  and  left 
the  crow  featherless — as  regards  Lex 
ington. 

"On  the  fourteenth  day  of  April 
he  departed  from  Lexington,  moving 
southward  through  the  forest  to  New 
Orleans.  Scarcely  yet  had  the  woods 
begun  to  turn  green.  He  notes  merely 
the  white  blossoms  of  the  redroot  peep 
ing  through  the  withered  leaves,  and 
the  buds  of  the  buckeye.  With  those 
sharp  eyes  of  his  he  observed  that 

93 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

wherever  a  hackberry  tree  had  fallen, 
cattle  had  eaten  the  bark. 

"And  now  we  begin  to  take  leave  of 
him:  he  passes  from  our  picture,  We 
catch  a  glimpse  of  him  standing  on  the 
perpendicular  cliffs  of  solid  limestone 
at  the  Kentucky  River,  green  with  a 
great  number  of  uncommon  plants  and 
flowers — we  catch  a  glimpse  of  him 
standing  there,  watching  bank  swallows 
and  listening  to  the  faint  music  of  the 
boat  horns  in  the  deep  romantic  valley 
below,  where  the  Kentucky  arks,  pass 
ing  on  their  way  southward,  turned  the 
corners  of  the  verduous  cliffs  as  the 
musical  gondolas  turn  the  corners  of 
vine-hung  Venice  in  the  waters  of  the 
Adriatic. 

"On  and  on  southward;  visiting  a 
roosting-place  of  the  passenger  pigeon 

94 


THE     SCHOOL 

which  was  reported  to  him  as  forty 
miles  long:  he  counted  ninety  nests  in 
one  beech  tree.  We  see  him  emerging 
upon  the  Kentucky  barrens  which  were 
covered  with  vegetation  and  open  for 
the  sweep  of  the  eye. 

"Now,  at  last,  he  begins  to  meet  the 
approach  of  spring  in  full  tide:  all  Na 
ture  is  bursting  into  leaf  and  blossom. 
No  longer  are  the  redbud  and  the  dog 
wood  and  the  sassafras  conspicuous  as 
its  heralds.  And  now,  overflowing  the 
forest,  advances  the  full-crested  wave 
of  bird-life  up  from  the  south,  from  the 
tropics.  New  and  unknown  species  are 
everywhere  before  his  eyes;  their  new 
melodies  are  in  his  ears;  he  is  busy 
drawing,  colouring,  naming  them  for 
his  work. 

"So  he  passes  out  of  our  picture: 

95 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

southward  bound,  encountering  a  cloud 
of  parrakeets  and  pigeons,  emerging 
from  a  cave  with  a  handkerchief  full  of 
bats,  swimming  creeks,  sleeping  at 
night  alone-  in  the  wilderness,  his  gun 
and  pistol  in  his  bosom.  He  vanishes 
from  the  forest  scene,  never  from  the 
memory  of  mankind. 

"Let  me  tell  you  that  he  did  not  live 
to  complete  his  work.  Death  overtook 
him,  not  a  youth  but  still  young;  for,  as 
a  Roman  of  the  heroic  years  deeply 
said:  'Death  always  finds  those  young 
who  are  still  at  work  for  the  future  of 
the  world/ 

"  I  told  you  I  was  going  to  speak  to 
you  of  a  boy's  life.  I  asked  you  to  fix 
your  eyes  upon  it  as  a  far-off  human 
spark,  barely  glimmering  through  mist 
and  fog  but  slowly,  as  the  years  passed, 


THE     SCH  OOL 

getting  stronger,  growing  brighter,  al 
ways  drawing  nearer  until  it  shone 
about  you  here  as  a  great  light  and  then 
passed  on,  leaving  an  eternal  glory. 

"  I  have  done  that. 

"You  saw  a  little  fellow  taken  from 
school  at  about  the  age  of  eleven  and 
put  to  hard  work  at  weaving;  now  you 
see  one  of  the  world's  great  ornitholo 
gists,  who  had  traversed  some  ten  thou 
sand  miles  of  comparative  wilderness — 
an  imperishable  figure,  doing  an  imper 
ishable  deed.  I  love  to  think  of  him  as 
being  in  the  end  what  he  most  hated 
to  be  in  the  beginning — a  weaver:  he 
wove  a  vast,  original  tapestry  of  the 
bird-life  of  the  American  forest. 

"As  he  passed  southward  from  Lex 
ington  that  distant  April  of  1810,  en 
countering  his  first  spring  in  the  Ohio 

97 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

valley  with  its  myriads  of  birds,  some 
where  he  discovered  a  new  and  beauti 
ful  species  of  American  wood  warbler 
and  gave  it  a  local  habitation  and  a 
name. 

"He  called  it  the  Kentucky  Warbler. 

"And  now,"  the  lecturer  said,  by  way 
of  climax,  "would  you  not  like  to  see  a 
picture  of  that  mighty  hunter  who  lived 
in  the  great  days  of  the  young  Ameri 
can  republic  and  crossed  Kentucky  in 
the  great  days  of  the  pioneers?  And 
would  you  not  also  like  to  see  a  picture 
of  the  exquisite  and  only  bird  that  bears 
the  name  of  our  State — the  Kentucky 
Warbler?" 

He  passed  over  to  them  a  portrait  en 
graving  of  Alexander  Wilson  in  the 
dress  of  a  gentleman  of  his  time,  his 
fowling-piece  on  his  forearm.  And 

98 


THE     SCHOOL 


along  with  this  he  delivered  to  them  a 
life-like,  a  singing  portrait,  of  the  war 
bler,  painted  by  a  great  American  ani 
mal  painter  and  bird  painter — Fuertes. 


Ill 

THE   FOREST 

T  was  the  first  day  of  vaca 
tion. 

Schools,  if  you  were  not 
through  with  them,  had 
now  become  empty,  closed,  silent 
buildings,  stripped  of  authority  to 
imprison  and  bedevil  you  and  then 
mark  you  discreditably  because  you 
righteously  rebelled  against  being  im 
prisoned  and  bedeviled.  They  could 
safely  be  left  to  dust  and  cobwebs 
within  and  to  any  weeds  that  might 
lodge  and  sprout  outside — the  more  the 


100 


THE      FOREST 

better.  You  stood  on  the  spring-edge 
of  the  long,  free,  careless  sjumm^r  and 
could  look  unconcernedly  across  at  the 
distant  autumn  edge.  Then  as  the 
woods,  now  in  their  first  full  green,  were 
beginning  to  turn  dry  and  yellow,  the 
powerless  buildings  would  again  be 
come  tyrannical  schools. 

But  if  you  had  finished  high  school, 
on  this  first  day  of  vacation  you  were 
on  the  Boy's  Common:  schools  behind 
you,  the  world  of  business  around  you, 
ahead  of  you  ambitious  college  or  the 
stately  University.  Webster  had  been 
turned  loose  on  the  Boy's  Common. 

The  family  were  at  breakfast.  Every 
breakfast  in  the  cottage  was  much  the 
same  breakfast :  routine  is  the  peace  of 
the  roadless.  Existence  there  through- 

101 


THEKENTUCKY     WARBLER 

btit:thfe  year  was  three  hundred  and 
sixiyrfiY&  tjrnes  more  or  less  like  itself. 
The  earth  meantime  did  change  for  the 
signs  of  the  zodiac:  the  cottage  changed 
also,  but  had  a  zodiac  of  its  own. 
Thus,  when  the  planet  was  in  the  sign 
of  Capricornus,  the  cottage  on  a  morn 
ing  had  fried  perch  for  breakfast,  as  a 
sign  that  it  was  in  Pisces;  when  earth 
was  in  Gemini,  the  family  might  have 
a  steak  which  showed  that  it  was  in 
Taurus — or  that  Taurus  was  in  the 
family. 

There  was  always  hot  meat  of  one 
kind  and  hot  bread  of  two  kinds  and 
hot  coffee  of  any  kind.  If  Webster's 
father  upon  entering  the  breakfast 
room  had  not  seen  a  dish  before  him 
to  carve  or  apportion,  the  shock  could 
not  have  been  greater,  had  he  found 

102 


THE     FOREST 

lying  on  his  folded  napkin  an  enclosure 
from  the  bank  notifying  him  that  he 
had  been  discharged  for  having  made 
the  figure  four  instead  of  the  figure  two. 
He  sat  squarely  facing  the  table  as 
long  as  his  own  portion  of  the  meat 
lasted,  meantime  eating  rapidly  and 
bending  over  to  glance  at  his  paper 
which  lay  flat  beside  his  coffee  cup. 
With  the  final  morsel  of  meat  he  turned 
sidewise  and  sat  cross-legged,  with  his 
paper  held  before  his  face  as  a  screen — 
notification  that  he  would  rather  not 
talk  at  the  moment,  unless  they  pre 
ferred.  ...  If  they  showed  that 
they  did  prefer,  he  still  had  means  to 
discourage  their  preference.  Now  and 
then  he  reached  around  toward  his 
plate  and  groped  for  the  remaining 
crumbs  of  bread,  or  hooked  his  fore- 

103 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

finger  in  the  handle  of  his  cup  and  con 
veyed  it  behind  the  paper. 

Webster's  mother,  busied  with  serv 
ice  at  the  tray,  commenced  her  break 
fast  after  the  others.  She  talked  to 
her  husband  until  he  interposed  his 
newspaper.  Then  she  unconsciously 
lowered  her  voice  and  addressed  re 
marks  to  the  children.  Occasionally 
she  tried  to  arrange  their  dissen 
sions. 

A  satirist  of  human  life,  studying 
Webster's  father  and  mother  at  the 
head  and  foot  of  the  table — symbol  at 
once  of  their  opposition  and  conjunc 
tion — a  satirist,  who  for  his  own  amuse 
ment  turns  life  into  pictures  of  some 
thing  else,  might  have  described  their 
bodily  and  pictorial  relation  as  that 
of  a  large,  soft  deep-dished  pudding 

104 


THE     FOREST 

to  a  well  trimmed  mutton  chop.  Their 
minds  he  would  possibly  have  im 
agined  as  two  south  winds  moving 
along,  side  by  side;  whatever  else  they 
blew  against,  they  could  not  possibly 
blow  against  each  other. 

On  this  fine  June  morning,  the  first 
day  of  his  vacation,  Webster  was  late 
for  breakfast.  He  arranged  to  be  late. 
From  his  bathroom-bedroom  he  could 
hear  the  family  with  their  usual  morn 
ing  talk,  Elinor's  shrill  chatter  pre 
dominating.  When  her  chatter  ceased 
he  would  know  that  she  had  satisfied 
her  whimsical  appetite  and  had  slipped 
from  her  chair,  impatient  either  to  get 
to  the  front  porch  with  its  creaky 
rocking-chair  or  to  dart  out  the  gate 
to  other  little  girls  in  the  block;  rest 
lessly  seeking  some  adventure  else- 

105 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

where  if  none  should  pass  before  her 
eyes  at  home. 

He  waited  till  she  should  go;  there 
was  something  especial  to  speak  of 
with  his  father  and  he  did  not  wish 
this  to  be  spoiled  by  Elinor's  inter 
ference  and  ridicule. 

When  she  was  gone  he  went  in  to 
breakfast. 

"Well,  my  son,  how  are  you  going 
to  spend  your  first  day  of  vacation?" 
his  father  inquired,  helping  him  to  his 
portion  and  not  particularly  noticing 
his  own  question. 

"I  thought  I'd  go  over  into  the 
woods,"  Webster  replied. 

An  unfavourable  silence  followed 
this  announcement.  That  old  stubborn 
controversy  about  the  woods !  .  .  . 

"Father,"  asked  Webster,  with  his 

1 06 


THE     FOREST 

eyes  on  his  plate,  "did  you  ever  see 
the  Kentucky  warbler?" 

Webster's  father  looked  over  the 
top  of  the  wood-pulp  screen.  His 
face  had  a  somewhat  vacant  ex 
pression.  He  waited.  Finally  he 
said: 

"My  son,  I  believe  you  asked  me  a 
question:  I  shall  have  to  ask  you  to 
repeat  your  question;  I  may  be  los 
ing  my  hearing  or  I  may  be  losing  my 
mind.  You  asked  me — ?" 

Webster,  in  the  same  deliberate  tone, 
repeated  his  question: 

"Did  you  ever  see  the  Kentucky 
warbler?" 

Webster's  father  looked  over  his 
spectacles  at  Webster's  mother  as  with 
the  air  of  an  appeal  for  guidance: 

"My  dear,  your  son  asks  me,  if  I 

107 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

understand  him,  whether  I  have  ever 
seen  a  Kentucky  wooden  war  horse?" 

He  was  not  above  fun-making  and 
it  seemed  to  him  that  the  occasion 
called  for  it. 

Webster's  mother  explained : 

"One  of  the  professors  from  the 
University  lectured  to  them  in  April 
about  birds.  His  head  has  been  full 
of  birds  ever  since:  I  shouldn't  wonder 
if  his  dreams  have  been  full  of  them." 
She  looked  at  Webster  not  without 
ineradicable  tenderness  and  pride;  she 
could  not  quite  have  explained  the 
pride,  she  could  have  explained  the 
tenderness. 

Now  the  truth  of  the  matter  was 
that  since  that  memorable  morning 
of  the  April  talk  at  high  school,  she 
had  been  hearing  from  Webster  re- 

108 


THE     FOREST 

peatedly  on  that  subject.  He  had  told 
her  of  the  lecture  immediately  upon 
reaching  home;  she  had  never  seen 
him  so  wrought  up.  And  from  that 
time  he  had  upon  occasion  plied  her 
with  questions:  as  to  what  she  knew 
of  birds  when  she  lived  in  the  country. 
She  had  to  tell  him  that  she  knew  very 
little;  everybody  identified  the  sev 
eral  species  that  preyed  upon  fruit  and 
berries  and  young  chickens;  she  named 
these  readily  enough.  She  had  never 
heard  of  a  bird  called  the  Kentucky 
warbler.  And  she  had  never  heard  of 
Alexander  Wilson. 

All  this  she  had  duly  narrated  to 
Webster's  father — greatly  to  his  de 
jection.  A  bank  officer  with  a  solitary 
son,  now  graduated  from  high  school, 
going  after  bird-nests — that  was  a 

109 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

prospect  before  such  a  father!  He  had 
shaken  his  head  in  silence  that  more 
than  spoke. 

"I  told  him,"  Webster's  mother  had 
concluded,  "that  the  only  Wilsons 
worth  knowing  in  Kentucky  were  the 
horse-people  Wilsons:  of  course  we 
know  them.  It  has  been  amusing  to 
watch  Elinor.  Whenever  Webster  has 
begun  about  birds,  if  she  has  over 
heard  him,  she  has  made  it  convenient 
to  settle  somewhere  near  and  listen. 
She  would  break  in  and  stop  his  ques 
tions,  but  then  therfe  would  be  no  more 
entertainment  for  her.  She  has  been 
a  study/' 

Thus  Webster's  father  was  not  so 
ill-informed  as  he  now  appeared.  In 
return  for  the  information  from  Web 
ster's  mother,  apparently  for  the  first 

I  10 


THE     FOREST 

time  imparted,  he  looked  at  his  son 
with  an  expression  which  plainly  meant 
that  as  a  speculation  the  latter  was 
becoming  a  graver  risk. 

"No,  my  son,"  he  said,  "I  have 
never  met  your  forest  friend.  I  am 
merely  a  Kentucky  bank  warbler.  One 
who  did  his  warbling  years  ago.  There 
is  some  war  left  in  me.  I  suppose  there 
will  always  be  war  left  in  me,  but  there 
isn't  any  war-ble.  I  warbled  one  dis 
tant  solitary  spring  to  your  mother. 
She  replied  beautifully  in  kind  and 
lavishly  in  degree.  We  made  a  nest 
and  had  a  hatching.  Since  then  the 
male  bird  has  been  trying — not  to 
escape  the  consequences  of  his  song — 
but  to  meet  his  notes  like  a  man.  I 
have  never  stumbled  upon  your  forest 
friend/' 

in 


silence; 

I  12 


THE     FOREST 

"A  living  naturalist  says  the  notes 
may  be: 
'"ToodJetoodUtoodk.9" 

Silence  at  the  table  still  more  deep. 
Webster  broke  it: 

"Another  naturalist  describes  the 
bird  as  saying: 

"  '  Ter-wheeter  wheeler  wheeler  wheeler 
wheeler' ' 

The  silence!   Webster  continued: 

"Another  naturalist  thinks  the  song 
is: 

'Che  che  che  peery  peery  peery  J  ' 

Webster's  father  raised  his  eyebrows 
— he  had  no  hair  to  raise — at  Webster's 
mother:  a  sign  that  their  graduate 
was  beginning  to  celebrate  his  vacation. 

"My  son/'  he  said,  "when  I  was  a 
little  fellow  in  school,  one  of  the  read 
ing  lessons  was  a  poem  called  'Try, 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

Try  Again.'  Perhaps  the  bird  is  work 
ing  along  that  line." 

"Thomas  Jefferson  followed  a  bird 
for  hours  in  the  woods,"  said  Webster, 
with  dignity:  he  somehow  felt  re 
buked.  "And  for  twenty  years  he 
tried  to  catch  sight  of  another." 

"  Don't  let  me  come  between  you  and 
Thomas  Jefferson,"  said  Webster's 
father,  waving  his  hand  toward  his 
son  in  protest.  "God  forbid  that  I 
should  come  between  any  two  such 
persons  as  Daniel  Webster  and  Thomas 
Jefferson!" 

"The  government  at  Washington," 
observed  Webster  stoutly,  "is  behind 
the  Kentucky  warbler." 

"Then,  my  son,  I  advise  you  to  get 
behind  the  Government." 

The  rusty  bell  at  the  little  front  door 

114 


THE     FOREST 

went  off  with  a  sound  like  the  whirr  of 
a  frightened  prairie  chicken.  The 
breakfast  maid,  also  the  cook,  also  the 
maid  of  all  work,  also  a  unit  of  the 
standardised  population  of  disservice 
and  discontent,  entered  and  pushed  a 
bill  at  Webster's  father. 

"The  butcher,"  she  announced  with 
sullen  gratification,  "He's  waiting." 

As  Webster's  father  left  the  table, 
he  tapped  his  son  affectionately  on  the 
head  with  his  paper:  "You  follow  the 
bird,  my  boy;  and  follow  Thomas 
Jefferson,  if  you  can.  The  butcher 
follows  me." 

Webster's  mother  sat  watching  him. 
He  had  begun  to  get  his  lunch  ready. 
He  held  the  bottom-half  of  a  long, 
slender  roll,  which  might  have  served 
as  a  miniature  model  for  an  old-time 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

Kentucky  river-ark;  and  with  his  knife, 
grasped  like  an  oar,  he  was  lining  the 
inside  with  some  highly  specialised  yel 
low  substance.  She  deplored  his  awk 
wardness  and  fought  his  independence. 

"Let  me  put  up  your  lunch  for  you, 
my  son!" 

"Til  put  it  up." 

He  was  not  to  be  cheated  out  of  that 
fresh  sensation  of  pleasure  which  comes 
to  the  male,  young  or  old,  who  tries  to 
cook  in  camp,  to  fry,  to  boil,  to  season, 
or  to  serve  things  edible. 

Webster  pulled  out  of  his  pocket  a 
crumpled  piece  of  brown  paper  and 
smoothed  it  out  on  the  table  cloth.  It 
showed  butcher  stains. 

Webster's  mother  protested. 

"My  son!  Take  a  napkin!  Take 
this  clean  napkin  for  your  lunch!" 

116 


THE     FOREST 

"I  like  this  paper." 

The  idea  of  being  in  the  forest  and 
unrolling  his  lunch  from  a  napkin: 
what  would  Wilson  have  thought? 
Elinor,  being  "nice,"  always  rolled  her 
lunch  in  a  napkin. 

"  But  you  will  be  hungry :  let  me  get 
you  some  preserves!" 

"Not  anything  sweet."  Elinor  al 
ways  had  preserves.  He  rolled  his 
lunch  roughly  and  thrust  it,  butcher- 
stains  and  all,  into  his  pocket.  His 
mother  was  exasperated  and  distressed. 

"My  son,  your  lunch  will  come  loose 
in  your  pocket:  I'll  get  you  a  string." 

"I  don't  want  a  string."  Elinor  tied 
everything.  Girls  tied;  boys  buttoned. 
The  difference  between  men  and  women 
was  strings. 

"But  you'll  get  the  grease  on  you, 

117 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

Webster!     It    will    run    down    your 

legs!" 

"Very  well,  then,  I'll  have  greasy 
legs.  Why  not?" 

She  followed  him  out  to  the  porch. 
Her  character  lacked  capacity  of  in 
itiative.  She  waited  for  him  to  be  old 
enough  to  take  some  initiative;  then  she 
would  stand  by  him. 

"  Don't  go  too  far/'  she  said  tenderly, 
"and  you  ought  to  have  some  of  your 
friends  to  go  with  you,  some  of  the  boys 
from  school." 

"They  can't  go  today.  Nobody  can 
go  today.  Anybody  would  be  in  the 
way  today." 

He  said  this  to  himself. 

She  watched  him  from  the  porch  and 
called:  " Don't  stay  too  late." 

Webster  walked  quickly  to  the  main 

118 


THE     FOREST 

corner  of  the  block — Jenny's  corner. 
On  this  first  morning  of  being  through 
with  school  and  of  feeling  more  like  a 
man  free  to  do  as  he  pleased,  Jenny  for 
that  reason  became  more  important — 
he  must  see  her  before  starting.  Here 
tofore  the  pleasure  of  being  with  Jenny 
had  definitely  depended  upon  what 
Jenny  might  do;  this  morning  the  idea 
was  beginning  to  be  Jenny  herself. 

She  was  in  her  trumpet-vine  arbour, 
the  roof  of  which  was  already  sun- 
dried.  The  shaded  sides  were  still  dew- 
wet.  She  bounded  across  to  him,  very 
exquisite  in  her  light  blue  frock  with 
broad,  fresh  white  ribbons  in  her  light- 
brown  hair:  healthy,  docile,  joyous, 
with  innocent  blue  eyes  and  the  com 
plexion  of  apple  blossoms. 

"  Where  are  you  going? "  she  asked 

119 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

in  a  voice  which  implied  that  the  day 
would  be  as  pleasant,  no  matter  where 
he  went:  nevertheless  she  had  no 
thought  of  appearing  indifferent  to  him. 

He  told  her. 

"What  are  you  going  into  the  woods 
for?"  she  inquired,  with  little  dancing 
movements  of  her  feet  on  the  yard 
grass  in  irrepressible  health  and  joy  and 
with  no  especial  interest  in  his  reply. 

He  told  her. 

"Could  you  go?"  He  very  well  knew 
she  could  not  and  merely  yielded  to  an 
impulse  to  express  himself:  he  was 
offering  to  ruin  the  day  for  her. 

"They  wouldn't  let  me,"  said  Jenny, 
apparently  not  disappointed  at  being 
thus  kept  at  home. 

He  sought  to  make  the  best  of  his 
disappointment. 

1 20 


THE     FOREST 

"Even  if  you  could  go,  I  am  afraid 
you  never  would  be  quiet,  Jenny." 

"I'm  afraid  I  wouldn't/'  Jenny  re 
plied,  responsive  to  every  suggestion. 

He  lingered,  tenderly  disturbed  by 
her:  the  roots  of  the  future  were  grow 
ing  in  him  this  morning.  He  was 
changing,  he  was  changing  "her:  there 
was  an  outreaching  of  his  nature  to 
draw  her  into  the  future  alongside  him. 

Jenny  suddenly  stopped  dancing  and 
came  closer  to  the  fence,  having  all  at 
once  become  more  conscious  of  Web 
ster,  standing  there  as  he  had  never 
stood  before,  looking  at  her  as  he  had 
never  looked.  Her  nature  was  of  yield 
ing  sweetness,  clasping  trust.  She 
glanced  around  the  cottage  windows: 
the  situation  was  very  exposed.  Web 
ster  glanced  at  the  cottage  windows: 

121 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

the  situation  did  not  appear  in  the 

least  exposed.    Her  eyes  became  more 

round  with  an  idea : 

"Are  you  coming  back  this  way?" 
"I  will  come  back  this  way." 
Jenny  danced  away  from  the  fence, 

laughing  excitedly:    "Will  it  be  late?" 
"I  can  make  it  late?" 

Webster  climbed  the  fence  of  the 
forest  under  the  foliage  of  a  big  tree 
of  some  unknown  kind  and  descended 
waist-deep  into  the  foliage  of  a  weed 
with  a  leaf  as  big  as  an  elephant's  ear: 
it  had  a  beautiful  trumpet-shaped  white 
and  purple  flower.  He  wished  he  knew 
what  "it  was:  on  the  very  edge  of  the 
forest,  at  his  very  first  step,  he  had 
sunk  waist-deep  into  ignorance.  Then 
he  waded  through  the  rank  night- 

122 


THE     FOREST 

shade  and  stepped  out  upon  the  grass 
of  the  woods — the  green  carpet  of 
thick  turf,  Kentucky  bluegrass. 

At  last  he  was  there  under  those 
softly  waving  trees  which  summer  after 
summer  he  had  watched  from  the  porch 
and  windows:  long  they  had  called  to 
him  and  now  he  had  answered  their  call. 

But  the  disappointment!  As  he  had 
looked  at  the  forest  across  the  distance, 
the  tree-tops  had  made  an  unbroken 
billowy  line  of  green  along  the  blue 
horizon,  continuous  like  the  waves  of 
the  sea  as  he  imagined  the  sea.  Some 
where  under  that  forest  roof  he  had 
taken  it  for  granted  that  there  would 
be  thick  undergrowth,  wild  spots  for 
shy  singing  nesting  birds.  The  dis 
appointment!  The  trees  stood  ten  or 
twenty  or  thirty  feet  apart.  The  long- 

123 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

est  boughs  barely  touched  each  other, 
their  lowest  sometimes  hung  forty  or 
fifty  feet  in  the  air.  He  did  not  see  a 
tree  whose  branches  he  could  reach 
with  his  upstretched  arm.  The  sun 
shone  everywhere  under  them  every 
bright  day  and  the  grass  grew  thick  up 
to  their  trunks. 

Another  disappointment !  The  wood 
was  small.  He  walked  to  the  middle 
of  it  and  from  there  could  see  to  its 
edge  on  each  of  its  four  sides.  On  one 
side  was  a  field  of  yellow  grain — what 
the  grain  was  he  did  not  know — igno 
rance  again.  On  the  side  opposite  this 
was  a  field  of  green  grain — what  he 
did  not  know.  Straight  ahead  of  him 
as  he  looked  through  the  trees,  he 
could  see  an  open  paddock  on  which 
the  sunlight  fell  in  a  blazing  sheen;  it 

124 


THE     FOREST 

turned  to  silver  the  white  flanks  of 
some  calves  and  made  soft  gold  of  the 
coats  of  grazing  thoroughbreds.  Be 
yond  the  paddock  he  could  see  stables 
and  sheds  and  beyond  these  a  farm 
house:  he  could  faintly  hear  the  cackle 
of  barnyard  poultry. 

He  stood  in  bluegrass  pasture — 
once  Kentucky  wilderness.  It  was  like 
an  exquisite  natural  park.  As  he  had 
skirmished  toward  the  country  along 
turnpikes  with  school-mates  or  other 
friends  during  his  life,  often  his  eyes 
had  been  drawn  toward  these  world- 
famous  bluegrass  pastures.  Now  he 
was  in  one;  and  it  was  here  that  he  had 
come  to  look  for  the  warbler  which 
haunts  the  secret  forest  solitudes ! 

He  sat  down  under  a  big  tree  with  a 
feeling  of  how  foolish  he  had  been. 

125 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

This  was  again  followed  by  an  over 
whelming  sense  of  his  ignorance. 

He  did  not  know  the  kind  of  tree  he 
sat  under  nor  of  any  other  that  stood 
far  or  near.  These  were  such  as  sugar 
maple  and  red  oak  and  white  oak  and 
black  ash  and  white  ash  and  black 
walnut  and  white  walnut — rarely  white 
walnut — and  hickory  and  locust  and 
elm  and  a  few  haws :  he  did  recognise  a 
locust  tree  but  then  a  locust  tree  grew 
in  Jenny's  yard !  All  around  him  weeds 
and  wild  flowers  and  other  grasses 
sprang  up  out  of  the  bluegrass:  he  did 
not  know  them. 

There  was  one  tree  he  curiously 
looked  around  for,  positive  that  he 
should  not  be  blind  to  it  if  fortunate 
enough  to  set  his  eyes  on  one — the 
coffee  tree.  That  is,  he  felt  sure  he'd 

126 


THE     FOREST 

recognise  it  if  it  yielded  coffee  ready  to 
drink,  of  which  never  in  his  life  had 
they  given  him  enough.  Not  once 
throughout  his  long  troubled  expe 
rience  as  to  being  fed  had  he  been  al 
lowed  as  much  coffee  as  he  craved. 
Once,  when  younger,  he  had  heard  some 
one  say  that  the  only  tree  in  all  the 
American  forest  that  bore  the  name  of 
Kentucky  was  the  Kentucky  coffee  tree; 
and  he  had  instantly  conceived  a  de 
sire  to  pay  a  visit  in  secret  to  that  cor 
ner  of  the  woods.  To  take  his  cup  and 
a  few  lumps  of  sugar  and  sit  under  the 
boughs  and  catch  the  coffee  as  it 
dripped  down.  .  .  .  No  one  to  hold 
him  back ...  as  much  as  he  wanted  at 
last.  .  .  .!  The  Kentucky  coffee  tree — 
his  favourite  in  Nature! 

He    said     to    himself,    looking  all 

127 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

round  him,  that  he  had  the  outdoor 
loneliness  and  blindness  of  Silas 
Marner  this  wonderful  morning. 

Propped  against  the  tree  he  sat  still 
a  while,  thinking  of  the  long  day  be 
fore  him  and  of  how  he  should  spend  it 
in  this  thin  empty  pasture,  abandoned 
by  the  wild  creatures.  But  as  he  de 
liberated,  suddenly  and  then  more  and 
more  he  awoke  to  things  going  on 
around  him. 

A  few  feet  away  and  on  a  level  with 
his  eyes  a  little  fellow  descended  from 
high  over-head.  A  little  green  gym 
nast  trying  to  reach  the  ground  by 
means  of  his  own  rope  which  he  manu 
factured  out  of  his  body  as  he  came 
down.  How  could  he  do  it?  How  had 
he  learned  the  very  first  time  to  make 
the  rope  strong  enough  to  bear  his 

128 


THE     FOREST 

weight  instead  of  its  giving  way  and 
letting  him  drop?  Something  seized  one 
of  Webster's  ankles  with  a  pair  of  small 
jaws  like  pincers  and  reminded  him  that 
his  foot  was  in  the  way:  it  had  better 
move  on.  A  black  ant  suddenly  rushed 
angrily  over  his  knee.  A  cricket  leaped 
in  the  grass.  One  autumn  one  of  them 
had  started  its  song  behind  the  wain 
scoting,  Elinor  had  pushed  her  toe 
against  the  woodwork  and  silenced  it. 
A  few  feet  away  a  bunch  of  white  clover 
blossomed:  a  honey  bee  was  searching 
it.  Webster  found  on  the  back  of  one 
of  his  hands,  which  was  pressed  against 
the  grass,  a  tiny  crimson  coach  —  a 
mere  dot  of  a  crimson  coach  being 
moved  along  he  could  not  see  how. 
The  colour  was  most  gorgeous  and  the 
material  of  the  finest  velvet.  He  let  it 

129 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

go  on  its  way  across  his  hand  wither 
soever  it  might  be  journeying.  Directly 
opposite  his  eyes,  some  forty  feet 
from  the  ground,  was  a  round  hole  in  a 
rotten  tree-trunk.  Webster  wondered 
whether  a  bird  ever  pecked  a  square 
hole  in  anything.  Suddenly  from  be 
hind  him  a  red-headed  bird  flew  to  the 
dead  tree-trunk  and  alighted  near  the 
hole:  he  recognised  the  wood-pecker. 
And  he  remembered  that  this  was  the 
first  bird  Wilson  had  killed  that  first 
day  he  entered  the  American  forest: 
he  was  glad  that  it  was  the  first  he 
encountered !  No  sooner  had  the  wood 
pecker  alighted  than  the  head  of  an 
other  bird  appeared  at  the  hole  and  the 
wood-pecker  took  to  his  heels — to  his 
wings.  Webster  wished  he  had  known 
what  this  other  bird  was:  it  had  a  black 

130 


THE     FOREST 

band  across  its  chest  and  wore  a 
speckled  jacket  and  a  dull  reddish  cap 
on  the  back  of  its  head.  A  disturbance 
reached  him  from  a  nearby  tree-top,  a 
wailing  voice,  a  gulping  sound,  as  if 
something  up  there  were  sick  and  full 
of  suffering  and  were  trying  to  take  its 
medicine.  He  watched  the  spot  and 
presently  a  crow  flew  out  of  the  thick 
leaves :  the  crow's  family  seemed  not  in 
good  health.  A  ground  squirrel  jumped 
to  the  end  of  a  rotting  log  some  yards 
away  but  at  sight  of  him  shrieked  and 
darted  in  again.  The  whole  pasture 
was  alive. 

Webster  had  all  this  time  become 
conscious  that  another  sound  had  been 
reaching  his  ear  at  regular  intervals 
from  the  high  branches  of  the  trees, 
first  in  one  place  and  then  in  another. 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

His  eyes  had  followed  the  voice  but  he 
could  see  no  bird.  The  sound  was  like 
this: 

Se — u — re? 

That  was  the  first  half  of  the  song — 
a  question.  A  few  moments  later  the 
other  half  followed,  perhaps  from  an 
other  tree — the  answer: 

Se — u — u. 

Here  was  a  mystery:  what  was  the 
bird?  Could  it  be  the  bluebird! — his 
ignorance  again,  the  comicality  of  his 
ignorance!  Webster  had  never  seen  or 
heard  a  bluebird.  He  recalled  what  the 
professor  had  told  them — that  Alex 
ander  Wilson  had  written  the  first  poem 
on  the  American  bluebird,  perhaps  still 
the  best  poem;  and  he  had  given  them 
the  poem  to  memorise  if  they  liked, 
saying  that  they  might  not  think  it 

132 


THE     FOREST 

good  poetry,  but  at  least  it  was  the 
poetry  of  a  man  who  thought  he  could 
criticise  Robert  Burns!  Webster  had 
memorised  the  verses  and  as  he  now 
searched  the  forest  boughs  for  this  in 
visible  bluebird,  he  repeated  to  himself 
some  of  Wilson's  lines : 

"When  all  the  gay  scenes  of  summer  are  o'er 
And  autumn  slow  enters  so  silent  and  sallow 
And  millions  of  warblers  that  charmed  us 

before 
Have  fled  in  the  train  of  the  sun-seeking 

swallow; 

The  bluebird,  forsaken,  but  true  to  his  home 
Still  lingers  and  looks  for  a  milder  tomorrow 
Till  forced  by  the  horrors  of  winter  to  roam, 
He  sings  his  adieu  in  a  lone  note  of  sorrow/' 

Again  that  long  fine  strain  cast  far 
out  upon  the  air  like  a  silken  reel: 
Se — u — re?    Se — u — u. 
Or  could  it  be  a  woodcock? 


133 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

He  got  up  by  and  bye  and  walked 
toward  the  field  of  yellow  grain  on  one 
side  of  the  pasture.  Before  he  was  half 
way  he  stopped,  arrested  by  a  wonder 
ful  sound:  from  the  top  rail  of  the 
fence  before  him,  separating  the  pasture 
from  the  grain,  came  a  loud  ringing 
whistle.  It  was  Bob  white!  Boys  at 
school  sometimes  whistled  "bobwhite." 
He  knew  this  bird  because  he  had  seen 
him  hanging  amid  snow  and  ice  and 
holly  boughs  outside  meat  shops  about 
Christmas  time.  Here  now  was  the 
summer  song:  in  it  the  green  of  the 
woods,  the  gold  of  the  grain,  the  far 
brave  clearness  of  the  June  sky. 

He  tipped  forward,  not  because  his 
feet  made  any  noise.  Once  again, 
nearer,  that  marvellous  music  rang  past 
him,  echoing  on  into  the  woods.  Then 

134 


THE     FOREST 

it  ceased;  and  as  Webster  approached 
the  field  fence  what  he  saw  was  a  rabbit 
watching  him  over  the  grass  tops  until 
with  long  soft  leaps  it  escaped  through 
the  fence  to  the  safety  of  the  field. 

For  a  while  he  remained  leaning  on 
this  fence  and  looking  out  across  the 
coming  harvest.  Twenty  yards  away  a 
clump  of  alders  was  in  bloom:  some 
bird  was  singing  out  there  joyously.  It 
made  a  che  che  che  sound,  also;  but  its 
colour  was  brown. 

The  idea  occurred  to  Webster  that 
he  would  recross  the  pasture  to  the 
field  on  the  other  side  and  go  on  to  the 
turnpike:  one  ran  there,  for  he  heard 
vehicles  passing.  He  would  make  in 
quiry  about  some  piece  of  forest  fur 
ther  from  the  city.  He  remembered 
again  what  the  professor  told  them: 

135 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

"Some  of  you  this  summer  during 
your  vacation  may  go  out  to  some 
nearby  strip  of  woods — what  little  is 
left  of  the  old  forest — in  quest  of  the 
warbler.  Seek  the  wildest  spots  you 
can  find.  The  Kentucky  bluegrass 
landscape  is  thin  and  tame  now,  but 
there  are  places  of  thick  undergrowth 
where  the  bird  still  spends  his  Ken 
tucky  summer.  Shall  I  give  you  my 
own  experience  as  to  where  I  found 
him  when  a  boy  half  a  century  ago? 
On  my  father's  farm  there  was  a  wood 
land  pasture.  The  land  dipped  there 
into  a  marshy  hollow.  In  this  hollow 
was  a  stock  pond.  Around  the  edges 
of  the  pond  grew  young  cane.  It  was 
always  low  because  the  cattle  browsed 
it.  The  highest  stalks  were  scarcely 
five  feet.  On  the  edge  of  the  canebrake 


THE     FOREST 

a  thicket  of  papaw  and  blackberry 
vines  added  rankness  and  forest  secre 
cy.  It  was  here  I  discovered  him.  The 
pale  green  and  yellow  of  his  plumage 
blent  with  the  pale  green  and  yellow 
of  the  leaves  and  stalks.  But  it  was 
many  years  before  I  knew  that  the 
bird  I  had  found  was  the  Kentucky 
warbler.  If  I  had  only  known  it  when 
I  was  a  boy!" 

When  Webster  reached  the  turnpike 
and  looked  up  and  down,  no  one  was 
in  sight.  He  sat  on  the  fence  and 
waited.  By  and  bye,  coming  in  from 
the  country,  a  spring  wagon  appeared. 
Curious  projections  stuck  out  from  the 
top  and  sides  of  boxes  in  the  wagon. 
When  it  drew  nearer  Webster  saw 
poultry  being  taken  to  market.  He 

'37 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

looked  at  the  driver  but  let  him  pass 
unaccosted:  there  would  be  little  use 
in  applying  for  information  about  war 
blers  at  headquarters  for  broilers. 

Next  from  the  direction  of  the  city 
he  saw  coming  a  splendid  open  car 
riage  drawn  by  a  splendid  horse  and 
driven  by  a  very  pompous  coloured 
coachman  in  livery.  An  aristocratic 
old  lady  sat  in  the  carriage,  shielding 
her  face  from  the  dazzling  sunlight  with 
a  rich  parasol.  She  leaned  out  and 
looked  curiously  at  Webster. 

"Suydam,"  she  called  out  to  her 
coachman  with  a  voice  that  had  the 
faded  sweetness  of  faded  rose  leaves, 
"did  you  notice  that  remarkable  boy? 
He  looked  as  though  he  would  have 
liked  to  drive  with  me  out  into  the 
country.  I  wish  I  had  invited  him  to 
do  so." 

138 


THE     FOREST 

A  milk  cart  followed  with  a  great 
noise  of  tin  cans.  With  milk  carts 
Webster  felt  somewhat  at  home:  it 
was  often  his  business  to  receive  the 
family  milk.  As  the  cart  was  passing, 
he  motioned  for  the  milkman  to  stop. 
Perhaps  all  milkmen  stop  at  any  sign: 
there  may  be  an  order:  Webster  called 
out  with  a  good  deal  of  hesitation  : 

"Do  you  know  of  a  woods  further 
out  full  of  bushes  and  thickets?" 

The  milkman  gave  a  little  flap  of 
the  rein  to  his  horse: 

"What's  the  matter  with  you?"  he 
said  with  patient  forbearance: 

Finally  Webster  saw  creeping  down 
the  turnpike  toward  him  an  empty 
wagon-bed  drawn  by  a  yoke  of  oxen. 
A  good-natured  young  negro  man  sat 
sideways  on  the  wagon-tongue,  smok- 

139 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

ing.  Webster  halted  him  by  a  gesture 
and  a  voice  of  command : 

"Do  you  know  of  a  bushy  woods 
further  out?" 

Any  negro  enjoys  being  questioned 
because  he  enjoys  not  answering  ques 
tions.  Most  of  all  he  enjoys  any  puz 
zling  exercise  of  his  mother  wit. 

"A  bushy  woods?" 

"Yes,  a  bushy  woods." 

"What  do  you  want  with  a  bushy 
woods?" 

"I  want  to  find  where  there  is  one." 

The  negro  hesitated:  "there's  a 
bushy  woods  about  four  miles  out." 

"Is  it  on  the  pike?" 

"On  the  pike!  Did  you  ever  see  a 
bushy  woods  on  the  pike?  It's  beside 
the  pike." 

"Right  side  or  left  side?" 

140 


THE     FOREST 

"Depends which  way  you're  going. 
Right  side  if  you  are  going  out,  left 
side  if  you're  coming  in." 

"You  say  it's  four  miles  out?" 

"You  pass  the  three  mile  post  and 
then  you  go  a  little  further." 

"Are  there  any  birds  in  it?" 

"Birds?  There's  owls  in  it.  There's 
coons  in  it." 

"Do  you  know  a  young  canebrake 
when  you  see  one?" 

"I  know  an  old  hempbrake  when  I 


see  one." 


Webster  enjoyed  his  new  authority 
in  holding  up  his  negro  and  questioning 
him  about  a  forest.  And  it  seemed  to 
him  that  the  moment  had  come  when 
it  was  right  to  use  money  if  you  had  it, 
horns  or  no  horns.  He  pulled  out  a 
dime.  The  negro,  too  surprised  to 

141 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

speak,  came  across  and  received  it. 
He  declined  to  express  thanks  but  felt 
disposed  to  show  that  he  had  earned 
the  money  by  repeating  a  piece  of  in 
formation: 

"It's  four  miles  out." 

"Is  there  much  of  it?" 

"Much  of  it?    Much  as  you  want/' 

"Do  you  live  in  it?" 

"No,  I  don't  live  in  it:    I  live  in  a 
house." 

He   had    retaken    his    seat    on    the 
wagon-tongue. 

"What  kind  of  pipe  stem  is  that  you 
are  using?" 

"What  kind?   It's  a  cane  pipe  stem." 

"Where  did  you  get  the  cane?" 

"Where  did  I  get  it?    I  got  it  in  the 
woods." 

"Then  there  is  young  cane  growing 
in  the  woods?" 

142 


THE     FOREST 

"Who  said  there  wasn't?" 

Webster,  beginning  this  morning  to 
use  his  eyes,  took  notice  of  something 
which  greatly  interested  him  as  the 
wagon  moved  slowly  off  down  the 
pike:  strands  of  hemp  clung  to  it  here 
and  there  like  a  dry  hanging  moss. 
The  geologist  had  told  them  that  his 
own  boyhood  lay  far  back  in  the  era 
of  great  Kentucky  hemp-raising.  Much 
of  the  hemp  was  broken  in  March,  the 
month  of  high  winds.  As  the  hemp- 
breakers  busily  shook  out  their  hand- 
fuls  while  separating  the  fibre  from 
the  shard,  strands  were  carried  away 
on  the  roaring  gales,  lodging  against 
stubble  and  stumps  and  fences  of  the 
fields  or  blown  further  on  into  the 
pastures.  Later  when  it  was  baled 
and  hauled  in,  other  filaments  were 

143 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

caught  on  the  rafters  and  shingles  of 
hemp-houses  and  barns.  Thus  when 
in  April  the  northward  migration  of 
birds  reached  Kentucky,  this  material 
was  everywhere  ready  and  plentiful, 
and  the  Baltimore  orioles  on  the  blue- 
grass  plateau  built  their  long  hanging 
nests  of  Kentucky  hemp. 

Webster,  sitting  on  the  fence  and 
thinking  of  this,  meantime  laid  his 
plans  for  the  larger  adventure  of  the 
following  day :  the  clue  he  sought  had 
unexpectedly  been  found :  he  would  go 
out  to  the  place  where  young  cane 
grew:  there  he  might  have  a  real 
chance  at  the  warbler. 

This  being  settled  to  his  satisfaction, 
he  hurried  impatiently  back  to  his 
woodland  pasture.  It  had  seemed  emp 
ty  of  living  creatures  when  he  entered 

144 


THE     FOREST 

it;  soon  it  had  revealed  itself  as  a  whole 
teeming  world.  The  mere  green  car 
pet  of  the  woods  was  one  vast  birth 
place  and  nursery,  concert  hall,  play 
ground,  battlefield,  slaughter-pen, 
cemetery. 

"  But  my  ignorance!"  he  complained. 
"I  have  good  strong  eyes,  but  all  these 
years  they  have  been  required  to  look 
at  dead  maps,  dead  books,  dead  pen 
cils  and  figures,  dead  everything:  not 
once  in  all  that  time  have  they  been 
trained  upon  the  study  of  a  living 
object." 

His  ears  were  as  ignorant  as  his  eyes: 
he  had  not  been  educated  to  hear  and 
to  know  what  he  heard.  Innumerable 
strange  sounds  high  and  low  beat  in 
cessantly  on  them — wave  upon  wave 
of  louder  and  fainter  melodies,  the 

145 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

summer  music  of  the  intent  and  earnest 
earth.  And  everywhere  what  fra 
grances  !  The  tonic  woody  smells !  Each 
deep  breath  he  drew  laved  his  lungs 
with  sun-clean,  leaf-sweet  atmosphere. 
Hour  after  hour  of  this  until  his  whole 
body  and  being — sight,  smell,  hearing, 
mind  and  spirit — became  steeped  in 
the  forest  joyousness. 

Now  it  was  alone  in  the  June  woods 
that  long  bright  afternoon  that  Web 
ster  took  final  account  of  the  last  won 
derful  things  the  geologist  had  told 
them  that  memorable  morning.  He 
pondered  those  sayings  as  best  he 
could,  made  out  of  them  what  he  could : 

"/  am  not  afraid  to  trust  you,  the 
young,  with  big  ideas  which  will  lift  your 
minds  as  on  strong  wings  and  carry  them 

146 


THE     FOREST 

swiftly  and  far  through  time  and  space. 
If  you  are  taught  to  look  j or  great  things 
early  in  life,  you  will  early  learn  low  to 
find  great  things;  and  the  things  you  love 
to  find  will  be  the  things  you  will  desire 
and  try  to  do.  I  wish  not  to  give  you  a 

single  trivial,  mean  weak  thought." 
******* 

"  The  Kentucky  warbler  for  over  a  hun 
dred  years  has  worn  the  name  of  the  State 
and  las  carried  it  all  over  the  world — 
leading  the  students  of  bird  life  to  form 
some  image  of  a  far  country  and  to  fix 
their  thoughts  at  least  for  some  brief  mo 
ment  on  this  same  beautiful  spot  of  the 
world's  surface.  As  long  as  be  remains 
in  the  forests  of  the  earth,  be  will  keep  the 
name  of  Kentucky  alive  though  all  else  it 
once  meant  shall  have  perished  and  been 
forgotten.  He  is  thus,  as  nearly  as  any- 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

thing  in  Nature  can  be,  its  winged  world 
wide  emblem,  ever  young  as  each  spring 
is  young,  as  the  green  of  tie  woods  is 

young." 

******* 

" Study  the  warbler  while  you  may: 
how  long  he  will  inhabit  the  Kentucky 
forest  no  one  can  tell.  As  civilisation 
advances  upon  the  forest,  the  wild  species 
retreat;  when  tie  forest  falls,  the  wild 
species  are  gone.  Every  human  genera 
tion  during  these  centuries  has  a  last  look 
at  many  things  in  Nature.  No  one  will 
ever  see  them  again:  Nature  can  never 
find  what  she  has  once  lost:  if  it  is  gone, 
it  is  gone  forever.  What  Wilson  records 
he  saw  of  bird  life  in  Kentucky  a  hundred 
years  ago  reads  to  us  now  as  fables  of  the 
marvellous,  of  the  incredible.  Were  he 
the  sole  witness,  some  of  us  might  think 

148 


THE     FOREST 

"him  to  be  a  lying  witness.  Let  me  tell  you 
that  I  in  my  boyhood — half  a  century 
later  than  Wilson's  visit  to  Kentucky 
— beheld  things  that  you  will  hardly  be 
lieve.  The  vast  oak  forest  of  Kentucky 
was  what  attracted  the  passenger  pigeon. 
In  the  autumn  when  acorns  were  ripe  but 
not  yet  fallen,  the  pigeons  filled  the  trees 
at  times  and  places,  eating  them  from  the 
cups.  Walking  quietly  some  sunny  after 
noon  through  the  bluegrass  pastures,  you 
might  approach  an  oak  and  see  nothing 
but  the  tree  itself,  thick  boughs  with  the 
afternoon  sunlight  sparkling  on  the  leaves 
along  one  side.  As  you  drew  nearer,  all 
at  once,  as  if  some  violent  explosion  bad 
taken  place  within  the  tree,  a  blue  smoke- 
like  cloud  burst  out  all  around  the  tree- 
top — the  simultaneous  explosive  flight 
of  the  frightened  pigeons.  Or  all  night 

149 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

long  there  might  be  wind  and  rain  and 
the  swishing  of  boughs  and  the  tapping 
of  loosened  leaves  against  the  window 
panes;  and  when  you  stepped  out  of 
doors  next  morning,  it  had  suddenly  be 
come  dear  and  cold.  Walking  out  into 
the  open  and  looking  up  at  tie  clear  sky 
you  might  see  this:  an  arch  of  pigeons 
breast  by  breast,  wing-tip  to  wing-tip, 
high  up  in  the  air  as  the  wild  geese  fly, 
slowly  moving  southward.  You  could  not 
see  the  end  of  the  arch  on  one  horizon  or 
the  other:  the  whole  firmament  was 
spanned  by  that  mighty  arch  of  pigeons 
flying  south  from  the  sudden  cold.  Not 
all  the  forces  in  Nature  can  ever  restore 
that  morning  sunlit  arch  of  pigeons  flying 
south.  The  distant  time  may  come,  or 
a  nearer,  when  the  Kentucky  warbler 
will  have  vanished  like  the  wild  pigeon: 

150 


THE     FOREST 

then  any  story  of  him  will  be  as  one  of 

the  ancient  fables  of  bird  life.11 

******* 

"  The  rocks  of  the  earth  are  the  one 
flooring  on  which  every  thing  develops  its 
story,  then  either  disappears  upon  the 
stillness  of  the  earth's  atmosphere  or 
sinks  toward  the  silence  of  its  rocks. 
Of  the  myriad  forms  of  life  on  the  earth 
the  bird  has  always  been  the  one  thing 
nearest  to  what  we  call  the  higher  life  of 
the  human  species. 

"It  is  the  form  and  flight  of  the  bird 
alone  that  has  given  man  at  last  the  mas 
tery  of  the  atmosphere.  Without  the  bird 
as  a  living  model  we  lave  not  the  slightest 
reason  to  believe  that  be  could  have  ever 
learned  the  mechanism  of  flight.  Now 
it  is  the  flight  of  the  bird,  studied  under 
the  American  sky,  that  has  given  the 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

nations  tie  war  engine  that  will  perhaps 
rule  ihe  destiny  of  the  "human  race  hence 
forth.  The  form  of  the  bird  will  fly  be 
fore  our  autumn-brown  American  ar 
mies  as  they  cross  the  sea — leading  them 
as  the  symbol  of  their  victory.  When 
they  lie  along  the  trenches  of  France  as 
thick  as  fallen  brown  autumn  leaves  in 
woodland  hollows,  it  will  be  the  flight  of 
bird-like  emblems  of  destruction  that 
will  guide  them  like  hurricane-rushing 
leaves  as  they  sweep  toward  their  evil 

enemy'9 

$$$$$$$ 

"Through  all  ages  the  flight  of  the 
bird  alone  has  been  the  interpreter  of  the 
human  spirit.  The  living,  standing  on 
the  earth  and  seeing  the  souls  of  their  dead 
pass  beyond  their  knowledge,  have  fixed 
upon  the  bird  as  the  symbol  of  their  faith. 

152 


THE     FOREST 

When  you  are  old  enough,  if  not  already, 
to  know  your  Shakespeare,  you  will  find 
in  one  line  of  one  of  Us  plays  the  whole 
vast  human  farewell  of  the  living  to  the 
dead:  they  are  the  words  of  Horatio  to 
Hamlet,  Us  dying  prince:  'the  flights  of 

angels  sing  thee  to  thy  rest.9  " 

******* 

"As  far  as  we  geologists  know,  this 
is  the  morning  of  the  planet.  Not  its 
dawn  but  somewhere  near  its  sunrise. 
Tie  bird  music  we  bear  in  these  human 
ages  are  morning  songs.  Back  of  that 
morning  stretches  the  earth's  long  dawn; 
and  the  rocks  tell  us  that  thrushes  were 
singing  in  the  green  forests  of  the  earth 
millions  of  years  before  man  had  been 
moulded  of  the  dust  and  had  awakened 
and  begun  to  listen  to  them.  Thus  bird 
music  which  seems  to  us  so  fresh  is  the 

'53 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

oldest  music  of  the  earib — millions  of 
years  older  than  man's.  And  yet  all  this 
is  still  but  a  morning  song.  The  earth  is 
young,  the  birds  are  young,  man  is 
young — all  young  together  at  the  morn 
ing  of  the  earth's  geologic  day.  What 
the  evening  will  be  we  do  not  know.  It 
is  possible  that  the  birds  will  be  singing 
their  evening  song  to  the  earth  and  man 
already  lave  vanished  millions  of  years 
before." 

"Many  questions  vex  us:  all  others  lead 
to  one:  when  man  vanishes,  does  he  pass 
into  the  stillness  of  the  earth's  atmosphere 
and  sink  toward  the  stillness  of  its  rocks 
like  every  other  species?  He  answers 
with  his  faith:  that  his  spirit  is  here  he 
knows  not  why,  hut  takes  flight  from  it  he 
knows  not  how  or  whither.  Only,  faith 
discloses  to  him  one  picture:  the  snowy 

154 


THE     FOREST 

pinion  folded  and  at  rest  in  the  Final 

Places." 

*        *        #        *        #        *        * 

That  long  sunny  afternoon  in  the 
June  woods!  The  shadows  of  the  trees 
slowly  lengthened  eastward.  The  sun 
sank  below  the  forest  boughs  and 
shot  its  long  lances  against  the  tree 
trunks.  It  made  a  straight  path  of 
gold,  deeper  gold,  across  the  yellow 
grain.  The  sounds  of  life  died  away, 
the  atmosphere  grew  sweeter  with 
the  odours  of  leaves  and  grasses  and 
blossoms. 

Webster  recrossed  the  woods  as  he 
had  entered  it,  waded  through  the 
nightshade  and  climbed  the  fence  under 
the  dark  tree. 

It  was  twilight  when  he  entered  the 
City. 

'55 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

As  he  passed  her  yard,  Jenny  bound 
ed  across  to  him  joyous,  innocent,  ten 
der,  in  a  white  frock  with  fresh  blue 
ribbons  in  her  brown  hair. 

"Did  you  find  him?"  she  asked,  her 
happiness  not  depending  on  his  answer. 

"It  was  not  the  right  place.  To 
morrow  I  am  going  out  further  into  the 
country  to  a  better  place." 

"The  humming-bird  has  been  here/' 
Jenny  announced  with  an  air  of  saying 
that  she  had  been  more  successful  as  a 
naturalist. 

He  made  no  reply:  as  the  veteran 
observer  of  a  day,  he  had  somewhat 
outgrown  the  trumpet-vine  arbour  and 
the  ruby-throat. 

He  lingered  close  to  the  fence.  Jenny 
lingered.  He  moved  off,  disappointed 
but  devoid  of  speech. 


THE     FOREST 

"Come  back!"  Jenny  whispered, 
with  reproach  and  vexation. 

It  was  the  first  invitation.  It  was 
the  first  acceptance  of  an  invitation. 
There  would  have  been  a  second  ac 
ceptance  but  the  invitation  was  not 
there  to  accept. 

When  Webster  turned  in  at  his  home 
gate,  everything  was  just  as  he  had 
foreseen :  his  father  sat  on  one  side  of  the 
porch,  smoking  the  one  daily  cigar;  his 
mother  faced  him  from  the  opposite 
side,  slowly  rocking.  Elinor  crouched 
on  the  top  step  between  them:  he  would 
have  to  walk  around  her  or  over  her. 

His  father  laughed  heartily  as  he 
sauntered  up. 

"Well,  my  son,  where  is  your  game 
bag?  What  have  you  brought  us  for 
breakfast?" 

157 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

Webster  looked  crestfallen:  he  re 
turned  empty-handed  but  not  empty- 
minded:  he  had  had  a  great  rich 
day;  they  thought  it  an  idle  wasted 
one. 

"Some  of  the  boys  have  been  here 
for  you,"  said  his  mother.  "They  left 
word  you  must  be  certain  to  meet  them, 
in  the  morning  for  the  game.  Freshen 
yourself  up  and  I'll  give  you  your  sup 
per." 

Elinor  said  nothing — a  .bad  sign  with 
her.  She  sat  with  her  sharp  little  chin 
resting  on  her  palms  and  with  her  eyes 
on  him  with  calculating  secrecy.  He 
stepped  around  her. 

His  room  had  never  seemed  so 
cramped  after  those  hours  in  the 
woods  under  the  open  sky.  The  whole 
cottage  seemed  so  unnatural,  every- 

158 


THE     FOREST 

thing  in  the  City  so  unnatural,  after 
that  day  in  the  forest. 

At  supper  he  had  not  much  to  say; 
his  mother  talked  to  him : 

"I  put  my  berries  away  to  eat  with 
you  for  company."  They  ate  their 
berries  together. 

He  felt  tired  and  said  he  would  go  to 
bed.  His  room  was  darkened  when  he 
returned  to  it;  he  felt  sure  he  had  left 
his  lamp  burning;  someone  had  been 
in  it.  He  lighted  his  lamp  again. 

As  he  started  toward  his  window  to 
close  the  shutters,  his  eye  caught  sight 
of  an  object  hanging  from  the  window 
sash.  A  paper  was  pinned  around  it. 
The  handwriting  was  Elinor's.  It  was 
a  bluejay,  brought  down  by  a  lucky 
stone  from  some  cottager's  hand.  Web 
ster  read  Elinor's  message  for  him: 

159 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

"Your  favourite  Kentucky  Warbler, 
From  your  old  friend, 

Thomas  Jefferson/' 

He  sat  on  the  side  of  his  bed.  The 
sights  and  sounds  and  fragrances  of  the 
pasture  were  all  through  him;  the  sun 
light  warmed  his  blood  still,  the  young 
blood  of  perfect  health. 

He  turned  in  for  the  night  and  sleep 
drew  him  away  at  once  from  reality. 
And  some  time  during  the  night  he 
awoke  out  of  his  sleep  to  the  reality  of  a 
great  dream. 


IV 
THE    BIRD 


T  was  in  the  depths  of  a 
wonderful  forest,  green 
with  summer  and  hoary 
with  age.  He  was  sitting 
on  the  ground  in  a  small  open  space. 
No  path  led  to  this  or  away  from  it,  but 
all  around  him  grew  grasses  and  plants 
which  would  be  natural  coverts  for  wild 
creatures.  No  human  tread  had  ever 
crushed  those  plants. 

The  soft  vivid  light  resting  on  the 
woods  was  not  morning-light  nor  even 
ing-light  :  it  was  clear  light  without  the 

161 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

hours.  Yet  the  time  must  have  been 
near  noonday;  for  as  Webster  looked 
straight  up  toward  the  unseen  sky, 
barred  from  his  eyes  by  the  forest  roof 
of  leaves,  slender  beams  of  sunlight 
filtered  perpendicularly  down,  growing 
mistier  as  they  descended  until  they 
could  be  traced  no  longer  even  as  lumi 
nous  vapour;  no  palest  radiance  from 
them  reached  the  grass. 

He  could  not  see  far  in  any  direction. 
At  the  edge  of  the  open  space  where  he 
sat,  fallen  rotten  trees  lay  amid  the 
standing  live  ones — parents,  grand 
parents,  great-grandparents  of  the  ris 
ing  forest,  passing  back  into  the  soil  of 
the  planet  toward  the  rocks. 

Strange  as  was  the  spot,  stranger 
was  Webster  to  himself  and  did  not 
know  what  had  changed  him.  It 

162 


THE     BIRD 

seemed  that  for  the  first  time  in  his  life 
his  eyes  were  fully  opened;  never  had 
he  seen  with  such  vision ;  and  his  feeling 
was  so  deep,  so  intense.  The  whole 
scene  was  enchantment.  It  was  more 
than  reality.  He  was  more  than  reality. 
The  singing  of  birds  far  away  —  it 
was  so  crystal  sweet,  yet  he  could  see 
none.  A  few  yards  from  him  a  rivulet 
made  its  way  from  somewhere  to  some 
where.  He  could  trace  its  course  by 
the  growth  of  plants  which  crowded 
its  banks  and  covered  it  with  their 
leaves. 

Expectancy  weighed  heavily  on  him. 
He  was  there  for  a  purpose  but  could 
not  say  what  the  purpose  was. 

All  at  once  as  his  eyes  were  fixed  on 
the  low,  green  thicket  opposite  him,  he 
saw  that  it  was  shaken;  something  was 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

on  its  way  to  him.  He  watched  the 
top  of  the  thicket  being  parted  to  the 
right  and  to  the  left.  With  a  great 
leaping  of  his  heart  he  waited,  motion 
less  where  he  sat  on  the  grass.  What 
creature  could  be  coming?  Then  he 
saw  just  within  the  edge  of  the  thicket 
a  curious  piece  of  head-gear — he  had 
no  knowledge  of  any  such  hat.  Then 
he  saw  a  gun  barrel.  Then  the  hand 
and  forearm  of  a  man  was  thrust  for 
ward  and  it  pushed  the  underbrush 
aside;  and  then  there  stepped  forth  into 
the  open  the  figure  of  a  hunter,  lean, 
vigorous,  tall,  athletic.  The  hunter 
stepped  out  with  a  bold  stride  or  two 
and  stopped  and  glanced  eagerly  around 
with  an  air  of  one  in  a  search;  he  dis 
covered  Webster  and  with  a  look  of 
relief  stood  still  and  smiled. 

164 


THE     BIRD 

There  could  be  no  mistake.  Webster 
held  imprinted  on  memory  from  a  pic 
ture  those  features,  those  all-seeing 
eyes;  it  was  Wilson — weaver  lad  of 
Paisley,  wandering  peddler  youth  of  the 
grey  Scotch  mountains,  violinist,  flut 
ist,  the  poet  who  had  burned  his  poem 
standing  in  the  public  cross,  the  exile, 
the  school  teacher  for  whom  the  boy 
caught  the  mouse,  the  failure  who  sent 
the  drawing  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  the 
bold  figure  in  the  skiff  drifting  down  the 
Ohio — the  naturalist  plunging  into  the 
Kentucky  wilderness  and  walking  to 
Lexington  and  shivering  in  White's  gar 
ret — the  great  American  ornithologist, 
the  immortal  man. 

There  he  stood:  how  could  it  be?  It 
was  reality  yet  more  than  reality. 

The  hunter  walked  straight  toward 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

him  with  the  light  of  recognition  in  his 
eyes.  He  came  and  stood  before  Web 
ster  and  looked  down  at  him  with  a 
smile: 

''Have  you  found  him,  Webster?" 

Webster  strangely  heard  his  own 
voice: 

"1  have  not  found  him." 

"You  have  looked  long?" 

"I  have  looked  everywhere  and  I 
cannot  find  him." 

The  hunter  sat  down  and  laid  on  the 
grass  beside  him  his  fowling  piece,  his 
game  bag  holding  new  species  of  birds, 
and  his  portfolio  of  fresh  drawings. 
Then  he  turned  upon  Webster  a  search 
ing  look  as  if  to  draw  the  inmost  truth 
out  of  him  and  asked: 

"Why  do  you  look  for  the  Kentucky 
Warbler?" 

1 66 


THE     BIRD 

Webster  hesitated  long: 

"I  do  not  know/'  he  faltered. 

"Something  in  you  makes  you  seek 
him,  but  you  do  not  know  what  that 
something  is?" 

"No,  I  do  not  know  what  it  is:  I 
know  I  wish  to  find  him/' 

"Not  him  alone  but  many  other 
things?" 

"Yes,  many  other  things/' 

"The  whole  wild  life  of  the  forest?" 

"Yes,  all  the  wild  things  in  the  for 
est — and  the  wild  forest  itself." 

"You  wish  to  know  about  these 
things — you  wish  to  know  them?" 

"  I  wish  to  know  them." 

The  hunter  searched  Webster's  coun 
tenance  more  keenly,  more  severely: 

"Are  you  sure?" 

There  was  silence.     The  forest  was 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

becoming  more  wonderful.  The  sing 
ing  of  the  unseen  birds  more  silvery 
sweet.  It  was  beyond  all  reality.  Web 
ster  answered : 

"I  am  sure/' 

The  hunter  hurled  questions  now 
with  no  pity: 

"Would  you  be  afraid  to  stay  here 
all  night  alone?" 

"I  would  not." 

"If,  during  the  night,  a  storm  should 
pass  over  the  forest  with  thunder 
deafening  you  and  lightning  flashing 
close  to  your  eyes  and  trees  falling 
everywhere,  you  would  fear  for  your  life 
and  that  would  be  natural  and  wise; 
but  would  you  come  again?" 

"I  would." 

"If  it  were  winter  and  the  forest 
were  bowed  deep  with  ice  and  snow 

1 68 


THE     BIRD 

and  you  were  alone  in  it,  having  lost 
your  way,  would  you  cry  enough? 
Would  you  hunt  for  a  fireside  and  never 
return?" 

"I  would  not." 

"You  can  stand  cold  and  hunger  and 
danger  and  fatigue;  can  you  be  patient 
and  can  you  be  persevering?" 

"I  can." 

"Look  long  and  not  find  what  you 
look  for  and  still  not  give  up?" 

"I  can." 

There  was  silence  for  a  little  while: 
the  mood  of  the  hunter  seemed  to 
soften : 

"Do  you  know  where  you  are,  Web 
ster?" 

"I  do  not  know  where  I  am." 

"You  did  not  know  then,  that  this 
is  the  wilderness  of  your  forefathers — 

169 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

the    Kentucky    pioneers.      You    have 
wandered  back  to  it." 

"  I  did  not  know/' 

"Have  you  read  their  great  story?" 

"Not  much  of  it." 

"Are  you  beginning  to  realise  what 
it  means  to  be  sprung  from  such  men 
and  women?" 

"I  cannot  say." 

"But  you  want  to  do  great  things?" 

"If  I  loved  them." 

The  hunter  stood  up  and  gathered 
his  belongings  together.  His  questions 
had  become  more  kind  as  though  he 
were  satisfied.  He  struck  Webster 
on  his  shoulder. 

"Come,"  he  said,  as  with  high  trust, 
"I  will  show  you  the  Kentucky  warbler." 

He  looked  around  and  his  eyes  fell 
upon  the  forest  brook.  He  walked  over 

170 


THE      BIRD 

to  it,  to  discover  in  what  direction  it 
ran  and  beckoned. 

"We'll  follow  this  stream  up:  the 
spring  may  not  be  far  away/'  He 
glanced  at  the  tree-tops:  "It  is  nearly 
noon :  the  bird  will  come  to  the  spring 
to  drink  and  to  bathe." 

Webster  followed  the  hunter  as  he 
threaded  his  way  through  the  forest 
toward  the  source  of  the  brook. 

Not  many  yards  off  his  guide  turned : 

"There  is  the  spring/'  he  said,  point 
ing  to  a  green  bank  out  of  which 
bubbled  the  cool  current. 

"Let  us  sit  here.  Make  no  move 
ment  and  make  no  noise/' 

How  tense  the  stillness !  They  waited 
and  listened.  Finally  the  hunter  spoke 
in  an  undertone: 

"Did  you  hear  that?" 

171 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

Away  off  in  the  forest  Webster  heard 
the  song  of  a  bird.  Presently  it  came 
nearer.  Now  it  was  nearer  still.  It 
sounded  at  last  within  the  thicket  just 
above  the  spring,  clear,  sweet,  bold, 
emphatic  notes  distinctly  repeated  at 
short  intervals.  And  then — 

There  he  was — the  Kentucky  Warblerl 
Webster  could  see  every  mark  of 
identification.  The  bird  had  come  out 
of  the  dense  growth  and  showed  him 
self  on  the  bough  of  a  sapling  about 
twenty  feet  from  the  earth,  in  his  grace 
and  shapeliness  and  manly  character. 
With  a  swift,  gliding  flight  downward 
he  lighted  on  a  sweeping  limb  of  a  tree 
still  nearer,  within  a  few  inches  of  the 
ground.  Then  he  dropped  to  the 
ground  and  moved  about,  turning  over 
dead  leaves.  He  was  only  several 

172. 


THE     BIRD 

yards  away  and  Webster  could  plainly 
trace  the  yellow  line  over  his  eye,  the 
blackish  crown  and  black  sides  of  the 
throat,  the  underparts  all  of  solid  yel 
lowish  gold,  the  upper  parts  of  olive 
green.  An  instant  later  the  bird  was 
on  the  wing  again,  hither,  thither,  up 
and  down,  continually  in  motion.  No 
white  in  the  wings,  none  in  the  tail 
feathers.  Once  he  stopped  and  poured 
out  his  loud,  musical  song — unlike  any 
other  warbler's.  A  moment  later  he 
was  on  the  ground  again,  with  a  man 
ner  of  self-possession,  dignity — as  on 
his  namesake  soil,  Kentucky. 

Webster  had  sat  bent  over  toward 
him,  forgetful  of  everything  else.  At 
last  drawing  a  deep  breath,  he  looked 
around  gratefully,  remembering  his 
guide. 

173 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

No  one  was  near  him.  Webster  saw 
the  hunter  on  the  edge  of  the  thicket 
yards  away;  he  stood  looking  back,  his 
figure  dim,  fading.  Webster,  forgetful 
of  the  bird,  cried  out  with  quick  pain: 

"Are  you  going  away?  Am  I  never 
to  see  you  again?" 

The  voice  that  reached  him  seemed 
scarcely  a  voice;  it  was  more  like  an 
echo,  close  to  his  ear,  of  a  voice  lost 
forever: 

"//  you  ever  wish  to  see  me,  enter  the 
forest  of  your  own  heart." 


V 

THE    ROAD 

EBSTER  sprang  to  his  feet 
in  the  depths  of  the  strange 
summer-dark  forest:  that 
is  to  say,  he  awoke  with  a 
violent  start  and  found  himself  sitting 
on  his  bed  with  his  feet  hanging  over 
one  side. 

It  was  late  to  be  getting  up.  The  sun 
already  soared  above  the  roof  of  the 
cottage  opposite  his  window  and  the 
light  slanted  in  full  blaze  against  his 
shutters.  Shafts  penetrated  some 
weather-loosened  slats  and  fell  on  his 


175 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

head  and  shoulders  and  on  the  wall 
behind  him.  Breakfast  must  be  nearly 
ready.  Fresh  cooking  odours — coffee 
odour,  meat  odour,  bread  odour — filled 
the  little  bathroom-bedroom.  Feet  were 
hurrying,  scurrying,  in  the  kitchen. 
Quieter  footsteps  approached  his  door 
along  the  narrow  hall  outside  and  there 
came  a  tap: 

"Breakfast,  Webster!" 

It  was  his  mother's  voice,  indulgent, 
peaceful,  sweet.  He  suddenly  thought 
that  never  before  had  he  fully  realised 
how  sweet  it  was,  had  always  been,  not 
withstanding  he  disappointed  her. 

He  got  lip  and  went  across  to  open 
his  shutters  and  had  taken  hold  of  the 
catch,  when  he  was  arrested  in  his 
movement.  At  night  he  tilted  the 
shutters,  so  that  the  morning  sun 

176 


THE     ROAD 

might  not  enter  crevices  and  shine 
in  his  face  and  awaken  him.  Now 
looking  down  through  the  slats,  he 
discovered  something  going  on  in  the 
yard  beneath  his  window.  Elinor  had 
come  tipping  around  the  corner  of 
the  cottage.  She  held  one  dark  little 
witch-like  finger  unconsciously  pressed 
against  her  tense  lips.  Her  dark  eyes 
were  brimming  with  a  secret,  mischie 
vous  purpose.  A  ribbon  which  looked 
like  a  huge,  crumpled  purple  morning- 
glory  was  knotted  into  the  peak  of  her 
ravenish  hair.  Her  fresh  little  gown, 
too,  suggested  the  colours  of  the  purple 
morning-glory  and  her  whole  presence, 
with  a  freshness  as  of  dew-drops  formed 
amid  moonbeams  at  midnight,  some 
how  symbolised  that  flower  which 
surprises  us  at  dawn  as  having  matured 

177 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

its  unfolding  in  the  dark:  half  sinister, 
half  innocent. 

With  cautious,  delicate  steps,  which 
could  not  possibly  have  made  any  noise 
in  the  grass,  she  approached  the  win 
dow  and  stopped  and  lifted  the  notched 
pole  which  was  used  to  hold  up  the 
clothes-line  in  the  back  yard.  Setting 
the  pole  on  end  and  planting  herself 
beside  it,  she  pushed  it  with  all  her 
slight  but  concentrated  strength  against 
the  window  shutters.  It  struck  vio 
lently  and  fell  over  to  the  grass  in  one 
direction  as  Elinor,  with  the  silence  of 
a  light  wind,  fled  in  the  other. 

Webster  stood  looking  down  at  it  all : 
he  understood  now:  that  was  the  crash 
ing  sound  which  had  awakened  him. 

It  had  been  Elinor  who  had  ended 
his  dream. 


THE     ROAD 

But  his  dream  was  not  ended.  It 
would  never  end.  It  was  in  him  to 
stay  and  it  was  doing  its  work.  The 
feeling  which  had  surprised  him  as  to 
the  sweetness  of  his  mother's  voice  but 
marked  the  deeper  awakening  that 
had  taken  place  in  his  sleep,  an  unfold 
ing,  his  natural  growth.  It  was  this 
growth  that  now  animated  him  as  he 
smiled  at  Elinor's  flying  figure.  Her 
prank  had  not  irritated  him:  no  in 
trigue  of  hers  would  ever  annoy  him 
again.  Instead,  the  idea  struck  him 
that  Elinor  must  be  thinking  of  him 
a  great  deal,  if  so  much  of  her  life — 
incessantly  active  as  it  was  with  the 
other  children  of  the  cottages — were 
devoted  to  plans  to  worry  him.  She 
must  often  have  him  in  mind  quite  to 
herself,  he  reflected;  and  this  fresh 

179 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

picture  of  Elinor's  secret  brooding 
about  him  somehow  for  the  first  time 
touched  him  tenderly  and  finely. 

He  turned  back  from  the  window 
shutters  without  opening  them  and 
sat  on  the  edge  of  his  bed.  He  could 
not  shake  off  his  dream.  How  could 
it  possibly  be  true  that  there  was  no 
such  forest  as  he  had  wandered  into 
in  his  dream — that  Kentucky  wilder 
ness  of  the  old  heroic  days?  Could 
anything  destroy  in  him  the  certainty 
that  with  wildly  beating  heart  he  had 
seen  the  living  colours  and  heard  the 
actual  notes  and  watched  the  charac 
teristic  movements  of  the  warbler? 
Then,  though  these  things  were  not 
real,  still  they  were  true  and  would  re 
main  true  always. 

Thus,  often  and  to  many  of  us,  be- 

180 


THE     ROAD 

tween  closing  the  curtains  of  the  eyes 
upon  the  outer  world  at  night  and 
drawing  them  wide  in  the  morning, 
within  that  closed  theatre  a  stage  has 
been  erected  and  we  have  stepped  forth 
and  spoken  some  solitary  part  or  played 
a  role  in  a  drama  that  leaves  us  changed 
for  the  rest  of  our  days.  Yesterday  an 
old  self,  today  a  new  self.  We  have 
been  shifted  completely  away  from 
our  last  foot-prints  and  our  steps  move 
off  in  another  direction,  taking  a  truer 
course. 

Beyond  all  else  a  high,  solemn  sense 
subdued  Webster  with  the  thought, 
that  in  his  sleep  he  had  come  near  as  to 
unearthly  things.  The  long-dead  hun 
ter,  who  had  appeared  to  him,  spoke  as 
though  he  lived  elsewhere  than  on  the 
earth  and  lived  more  nobly;  his  accents, 

181 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

the  majesty  of  his  countenance,  were 
moulded  as  by  higher  wisdom  and 
goodness.  Webster  was  overwhelmed 
with  the  feeling  that  he  had  been 
brought  near  the  mystery  of  life  and 
death  and  as  from  an  immortal  spirit 
had  received  his  consecration  to  the 
forest. 

...  He  got  down  on  his  knees  at  his 
bedside,  after  a  while,  though  little 
used  to  prayer.  .  .  . 

When  he  walked  into  the  breakfast- 
room  with  a  fresh  step  and  freshened 
countenance,  probably  all  were  not 
slow  to  notice  the  change.  Families 
whose  lives  run  along  the  groove  of 
familiar  routine  quickly  observe  the 
slightest  departure  from  the  custom 
ary,  whether  in  voice  or  behaviour,  of 
any  member.  There  was  response  soon 

182 


THE     ROAD 

after  his  entrance  to  something  in  him 
obviously  unusual. 

"My  son/'  said  his  father,  who  had 
laid  down  his  paper  to  help  him  to  the 
slice  which  had  been  put  aside,  "the 
woods  must  agree  with  you";  and  he 
even  scraped  the  dish  for  a  little  extra 
gravy.  Ordinarily,  when  deeply  in 
terested  in  his  paper  or  occasionally 
when  conscious  of  some  disappointment 
as  to  his  son,  he  forgot,  or  was  indiffer 
ent  about,  the  gravy. 

"They  do  agree  with  me!"  Webster 
replied,  laughing  and  in  fresh  tones. 
He  held  out  his  plate  hungrily  for  his 
slice  and  he  waited  for  all  the  gravy 
that  might  be  coming  to  him. 

"One  of  the  boys  has  already  been 
here  this  morning/'  said  his  mother, 
handing  him  his  cup.  "They  want  you 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

to  be  sure  to  meet  them  this  afternoon, 
not  to  fail.  You  must  have  been  dead 
asleep,  for  I  called  you  at  three  differ 
ent  times/' 

"Did  you  knock  three  times?" 

Webster  asked  his  question  with  a 
sinking  of  the  heart;  what  if  his  moth 
er's  first  knock  had  awakened  him? 
He  might  never  have  finished  his  dream, 
might  never  have  dreamed  at  all.  How 
different  the  morning  might  have 
been,  how  different  the  world — if  his 
mother  had  awakened  him  before  his 
dream ! 

He  received  his  cup  from  her  and 
smiled  at  her: 

"I  was  dreaming/'  he  said,  and  he 
smiled  also  at  the  safety  of  his  vision. 

Elinor,  sitting  opposite  him,  had 
said  nothing.  She  had  finished  her 

184 


THE     ROAD 

breakfast  before  he  had  come  in  and 
plainly  lingered  till  he  should  enter. 
Since  his  entrance  she  had  sat  restless 
in  her  chair,  toying  with  her  fork  or  her 
napkin,  and  humming  significantly  to 
herself.  She  had  this  habit.  "You 
must  not  sing  at  the  table,  Elinor,"  her 
mother  had  once  said.  "  I  am  not  sing 
ing,"  Elinor  had  replied,  "I  am  hum 
ming  to  myself,  and  no  one  is  supposed 
to  listen."  Meantime  this  morning,  her 
quickly  shifting  eyes  would  sweep  his 
face  questioningly;  she  must  have  been 
waiting  for  some  sign  as  to  what  had 
been  the  effect  of  the  Thomas  Jefferson 
blue-jay  the  night  before  and  of  the 
repeated  attack  on  his  window  shut 
ters. 

Often  when  out  of  humour  with  her 
he  had  declined  to  notice  her  at  table; 

185 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

now  once,  when  he  caught  her  search 
ing  glance,  he  smiled.  Dubiously,  half 
with  disbelief  and  half  with  amaze 
ment,  she  looked  steadily  back  at  him 
for  an  instant;  then  she  slipped  con 
fusedly  from  her  seat  and  was  gone. 
Webster  laughed  within  himself:  "what 
will  she  be  up  to  next?"  he  thought. 

It  was  quiet  now  at  the  table:  his 
father  had  gone  back  to  his  paper,  his 
mother  was  eating  the  last  of  her 
breakfast  fruit,  and  perhaps,  thinking 
that  out  in  the  country  things  were 
getting  ripe.  After  an  interval  Web 
ster  broke  the  silence:  he  was  white 
with  emotion. 

"Father,"  he  said  quietly,  "I  have 
decided  what  I'd  like  to  do." 

Webster's  father  dropped  his  paper: 
Webster's  mother's  eyes  were  on  him. 

1 86 


THE     ROAD 

The  years  had  waited  for  this  moment, 
the  future  depended  upon  it. 

"  If  you  and  mother  do  not  need  me 
for  anything  else  just  yet,  I'd  like  to 
work  my  way  through  the  University. 
But  if  there's  something  different  you'd 
rather  I'd  do,  or  if  you  both  want  me 
in  any  other  way,  I  am  here." 

"My  son,"  exclaimed  his  father, 
rudely  with  the  back  of  his  hand  brush 
ing  away  a  tear  that  rolled  down  his 
cheek — a  tear  perhaps  started  by  some 
thing  in  his  son's  words  that  brought 
back  his  own  hard  boyhood,  "your 
father  is  here  to  work  for  you  as  long 
as  he  is  alive  and  able.  Your  mother 
and  I  are  glad — !"  but  he  got  no  fur 
ther:  his  eyes  had  filled  and  his  voice 
choked  him. 

Webster's  mother  stood  beside  him, 

.87 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

her  hand  on  his  head,  her  handkerchief 
pressed  to  her  eyes. 

When  he  had  made  his  preparations 
for  the  glad  day's  adventure  and 
stepped  out  on  the  front  porch,  his 
father  had  gone  to  the  bank,  his  mother 
was  in  the  kitchen.  Elinor  was  sitting 
on  the  top  step.  Her  back  was  turned. 
Her  sharp  little  elbows  rested  on  her 
knees  and  her  face  was  propped  in  her 
palms.  Her  figure  again  suggested  a 
crumpled,  purple  morning-glory — fra 
gile,  not  threatened  by  any  human 
violence  but  imperilled  by  nature. 

She  did  not  look  around  as  he 
stepped  out  or  move  as  he  passed  down. 
He  felt  a  new  wish  to  say  something 
pleasant  but  could  not  quite  so  conquer 
himself.  As  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  yard 

1 88 


THE     ROAD 

gate,  he  was  stopped  by  these  words, 
reaching  his  ears  from  the  porch : 

"Take  me  with  you!" 

He  could  not  believe  his  ears.  Could 
this  be  Elinor,  his  tease,  his  torment? 
This  wounded  appeal,  timid  pleading 
— could  it  proceed  from  Elinor?  He 
was  thrown  off  his  balance  and  too 
surprised  to  act.  The  words  were 
repeated  more  beseechingly,  wistfully: 

"Take  me  with  you,  will  you,  Web 
ster?" 

For  now  that  she  had  given  herself 
away  to  him,  he  might  as  well  see 
everything:  that  at  last  she  was  openly 
begging  that  she  be  admitted  to  a  share 
in  his  plans  and  pleasures,  that  he  no 
longer  disdain  to  play  with  her. 

He  spoke  with  rough  embarrassment 
over  his  shoulder: 

189 


THE     KENTUCKY    WARBLER 

"You  can't  go  today.  Nobody  can 
go  today.  I'm  going  miles  out  into 
the  country  to  the  woods." 

"But  some  day  will  you  take  me 
over  into  the  woods  yonder?" 

After  a  while  he  turned  toward  her: 

"Yes,  I  will." 

"Thank  you  very  much.  Thank 
you  very  much,  indeed,  Webster!" 

The  tide  of  feeling  began  to  rush 
toward  her: 

"There  are  some  wild  violets  over 
there,  Elinor,  wild  blue  violets  and 
wild  white  violets — thick  beds  of  them 
in  the  shade." 

"Oh,  how  lovely!"  She  clasped  her 
hands  and  knotted  them  tensely  under 
her  chin  and  kept  her  eyes  fixed  more 
hopefully  on  him. 

"There  is  a  flock  of  the  funniest  little 

190 


THE     RO A  D 

fairies  dancing  under  one  of  the  big 
forest  trees,  each  carrying  the  queer 
est  little  green  parasol/' 

"How  perfectly,   perfectly  lovely!" 

"And  I  found  one  little  cedar  tree. 

If  they'll  let  us,  I'll  dig  it  up  and  bring 

it  home  and  plant  it  in  the  front  yard. 

It  will  be  your  own  cedar  tree,   Eli 


nor." 


"Oh,  Webster!  Could  anything  be 
more  lovely  of  you?" 

"You  and  I  and  Jenny  will  go  some 
day  soon — " 

"No,  no,  no!"  cried  Elinor,  stamp 
ing  her  feet  fiercely  and  wringing  her 
hands.  "I  don't  want  Jenny  to  go! 
I  won't  have  Jenny!  Just  you  and  I! 
Not  Jenny!  Just  you  and  I!" 

"Then  just  you  and  I,"  he  said, 
smiling  at  her  and  moving  away. 

191 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

"Wait!" 

She  darted  down  the  steps  and  ran 
to  him  and  drew  his  face  over  and  laid 
her  cheek  against  his  cheek,  clinging 
to  him. 

He  struggled  to  get  away,  laughing 
with  his  new  happiness:  tears  welled 
out  of  her  eyes  with  hers. 

Webster  had  taken  to  the  turn 
pike. 

The  morning  was  cool,  the  blue  of 
the  sky  vast,  tender,  noble.  Rain  dur 
ing  the  night  had  left  the  atmosphere 
fresh  and  clear  and  the  pike  dustless. 
Little  knobs  of  the  bluish  limestone 
jutted  out.  The  greyish  grass  and 
weeds  on  each  side  had  been  washed 
till  they  looked  green  again. 

The  pike  climbed  a  hill  and  from 

192 


THE     ROAD 

this  hilltop  he  turned  and  looked  back. 
He  could  see  the  packed  outskirts  of 
the  city  and  away  over  in  the  heart  of 
it  church  spires  rising  here  and  there. 
The  heart  of  it  had  once  been  the  green 
valley  through  which  a  stream  of  the 
wilderness  ran :  there  Wilson  had  seen 
the  water  mills  and  the  gallows  for 
hanging  Kentuckians  and  the  thou 
sand  hitched  horses  and  folks  sitting 
on  the  public  square  selling  cakes  of 
maple  sugar  and  split  squirrels. 

Soon  he  passed  the  pasture  where 
he  had  spent  yesterday.  That  had 
done  well  enough  as  a  beginning:  today 
he  would  go  further.  He  remembered 
many  things  he  had  seen  in  the  park- 
like  bluegrass  woods.  Sweet  to  his  ear 
sounded  the  call  of  bobwhite  from  the 
yellow  grain.  He  wondered  whether 

193 


THE     KENTUCKY     WARBLER 

the  ailing  young  crows  in  the  tree-tops 
had  at  last  taken  all  their  medicine. 
The  curious  bird  which  had  watched 
him  out  of  a  hole  in  the  tree-trunk — 
the  chap  with  the  black  band  across 
his  chest  and  the  speckled  jacket  and 
the  red  cap  on  the  back  of  his  head, 
was  he  still  on  the  lookout?  What  had 
become  of  the  gorgeous  little  velvet 
coach  that  had  travelled  across  the 
back  of  his  hand  on  its  unknown  road? 
And  that  mystery  of  the  high  leaves — 
that  wandering  disembodied  voice: 
Se-u-re?  Se-u-u.  Did  it  still  haunt 
the  waving  boughs? 

But  miles  on  ahead  in  the  country, 
undergrowth,  shade,  secrecy  for  wild 
creatures — his  heart  leaped  forward 
to  these  and  his  feet  hastened. 

This  day  with  both  eyes  open,  not 

194 


THE     ROAD 

shut  in  sleep,  he  might  find  the  war 
bler. 

Whole-heartedly,  with  a  boy's  eager 
ness,  Webster  suddenly  took  off  his 
hat  and  ran  down  the  middle  of  the 
gleaming  white  turnpike  toward  the 
green  forest — toward  all,  whether  much 
or  little,  that  he  was  ever  to  be. 


THE  COUNTRY   LIFE   PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,   N.Y. 


YB72706 
/ 


979697 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


